Tony Campolo on Religious Right
Tony Campolo blasts Religious Right as 'frightening'. That's the title of an article in the United Methodist Reporter this week. It is heartening to me to read this message from more folks in more and more groups.
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S. Rockwell:
At the recent Spiritual Prog Conf. last week Mr. Campolo said liberals should rely on the Bible. He even said, "You have no right to be a spiritual leader if you haven't read Scripture." Later on a young man challenged these comments by saying, "I thought this was a spiritual progressives' conference. I don't want to play the game of 'the Bible says this or that,' or that we get validation from something other than ourselves. We should be speaking from our hearts."
Doesn't this young man have a point? Should we categorize those as "non-leaders" simply if they do not use Scripture in trying to galvanize others toward the path of social justice?
use of scripture
I think both Campolo and the young man make valid points. I think if you are going to come at things from a progressive Christian perspective, you can't ignore scripture. There's so much rich content in the Bible that support the cause of social justice. Indeed, our case is that to follow Jesus Christ's example, one must be a proponent for social justice.
However, if you want to work for social justice, you don't necessarily need scripture or religious belief. Plenty of agnostics and atheists have worked for social justice. In this way, the young man has a valid point.
However, he was at the network of spiritual progressives conference. I wasn't there for this conversation, but perhaps Campolo's challenge was to the spiritual progressives to rely on scripture. I don't know that there were many atheists at the conference. I think the general attendance of the conference was focused on spiritual folks almost all of whom had a belief in God. Within this context, Campolo's call for reliance on scripture makes a good deal of sense.
scripture and the younger adult
I find it interesting that you would first assume religious belief is interchangeable with scripture. Religious belief need not be all about scripture, per se. You then refer to 'agnostics and atheists.' I'm not sure the young man or many young people are necessarily agnostic or atheist just because scripture isn't a familiar tool in their repertoire. If they express the same thought and action of a certain scripture is it fair to question their belief in God by categorizing them? Furthermore, I don't know how anyone at this point can begin putting things into a great deal of "context" when there are key components that still need to be brought together. The younger adult voice, for example. Again, one can believe in God and be a spiritual person or have religious beliefs without "knowing" scripture.
Campolo: Religious Right is crazy, crazy, crazy
I admire Tony Campolo quite a bit. He's one of the few liberals that have been engaging with the Religious Right for as long as I can remember. He has moved my dad (a fundamentalist Evangelical) away from the politics of ignorance and meanness towards the politics and faith of compassion that Jesus lived while on the Earth. Campolo has gone to promise keepers and praise gatherings taking the message directly to those who so desperately need to hear it.
At the rally across from the White House that was part of the network of spiritual progressives conference last week, Tony said that the Religious Right and Bush administration are "crazy, crazy, crazy." Sometimes a prophetic voice has to shout at the halls of power about the injustices of the system they created. Thank you Tony for being that prophetic voice.