Red Letter Christians

Tony Campolo

Description

In today's political environment, who speaks for whom is not always clear. Over the past couple of decades, evangelical Christians have tended to be associated with the religious right and the most conservative positions of the Republican Party. Rebelling against this designation are those who prefer to be called Red Letter Christians, desiring to live out Jesus's words in the New Testament. Believing that Jesus is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Red Letter Christians want to jumpstart a religious movement that will transcend partisan politics and concentrate on issues such as fighting poverty, caring for the environment, advancing peace, promoting strong families, and supporting a consistent ethic of life, all viewed as critical moral and biblical values. Into this arena of thought steps Tony Campolo, the powerful evangelist known for his passionate and prophetic sharing of the radical message of Jesus. In this book, Campolo examines many of the hot-button issues facing evangelicals from the perspective of Jesus's red-letter words in the Bible. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, Campolo will make you think, pray, and act.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Freedom of religion

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441223753
• Langue: English

Extrait

PRAISE FOR
RED LETTER CHRISTIANS
Tony writes this book with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, reminding us that our faith must affect how we live in this world. Tony helps us read America biblically, with the eyes of Jesus, rather than reading the Bible through the eyes of America. And be assured that this book is not just about how to vote in November . . . this is about how we vote every single day.
SHANE CLAIBORNE
Urban Monastic, Activist, Red Letter Christian and Author of Jesus for President
This book not only knocks your socks off, it puts your feet in sandals and helps you follow Jesus. Red Letter Christians is full of fascinating facts and insights, and we are all once again reminded that practical acts of loving our neighbor transform us into personal expressions of the Christ we worship.
JOEL HUNTER
Senior Pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, Longwood, Florida Author of A New Kind of Conservative
Evangelical Christianity has always been an essentially activist faith, and it loses its way when it forgets this activist edge. In Red Letter Christians , Tony Campolo challenges all of us to recover the active nature of our faith and to let it infiltrate all aspects of our lives. He continues to have a prophetic voice.
TONY JONES
Author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier National Coordinator of Emergent Village ( www.emergentvillage.com )
I have been inspired by Tony’s work for decades. But somehow I think his voice is needed now more than ever. With “Campolian” passion and insight, Red Letter Christians prods, challenges, questions, invites and instructs us to be people who love and live the words of Jesus.
BRIAN MCLAREN
Author (brianmclaren.net)
Tony Campolo has been a powerful voice for biblical justice for decades. One need not agree with every word to recognize Red Letter Christians as another important call to action.
RONALD J. SIDER
President of Evangelicals for Social Action
Author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

© 2008 Tony Campolo
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Baker Books edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-2375-3
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible ( NRSV ), copyright ©1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Other versions used are:
KJV—King James Version . Authorized King James Version.
NKJV —Scripture taken from the New King James Version . Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Dedicated to Loretta Kier, whose love for us and our love for her made her part of our family .
CONTENTS
Foreword By Jim Wallis
Preface
An Introduction
SECTION ONE Living by the Red Letters
Chapter 1 Who Are Red Letter Christians?
Chapter 2 A Biblical Approach to Politics
SECTION TWO The Global Issues
Chapter 3 The Environment
Chapter 4 The War
Chapter 5 Palestine
Chapter 6 The AIDS Pandemic
SECTION THREE The Hot-button Issues
Chapter 7 Gay Rights
Chapter 8 Gun Control
Chapter 9 Education
Chapter 10 Abortion
Chapter 11 Immigration
Chapter 12 Crime
SECTION FOUR The Economic Issues
Chapter 13 The Federal Budget
Chapter 14 The Minimum Wage
Chapter 15 Debtor Nation
Chapter 16 Wasteful Government
SECTION FIVE The Government Issues
Chapter 17 Political Lobbyists
Chapter 18 Campaign Finance
Chapter 19 The Right Kind of Candidate
Concluding Perspectives
Chapter 20 On Earth as It Is in Heaven
Endnotes
FOREWORD
When we went to Nashville on the God’s Politics book tour, we didn’t do a lecture—we did a concert! Ashley Cleveland, Buddy Miller, Emmy Lou Harris and Jars of Clay all played and sang, and I preached. We sold out the historic Belcourt Theatre twice in one night and had a lot of fun.
While there, I did some interviews, but one was particularly memorable. “I’m a secular Jewish country-music songwriter and disk jockey,” my interviewer on a Nashville radio station said. “But I love your stuff and have been following your book tour.” Then he told me he believed we were starting a new movement, but he noticed we hadn’t come up with a name for it yet. “I’ve got an idea for you,” he said. “I think you should call yourselves ‘The Red Letter Christians.’ You know those Bibles that highlight the words of Jesus in red letters? I love the red-letter stuff. The rest I could do without.”
When I told Tony Campolo that story, he almost jumped out of his seat. And when Tony gets excited—watch out! He got excited because Tony is a Red Letter Christian, and has been for a very long time. You might even call him the “godfather” of the Red Letter Christians . . . after all, he is Italian.
We Christians have a serious problem. Most people have the idea that Christians and the Church are supposed to stand for the same things that Jesus did. When we don’t stand for the things Jesus did, people get confused and disillusioned. Like I say, it’s a problem.
Jesus Himself is a problem. He’s a problem for the Wall Street traders, the Madison Avenue advertisers, the media moguls of Times Square, the Hollywood stars whose limos cruise Sunset Strip, the K Street lobbyists and the powerful people on Pennsylvania Avenue who strive to maintain American imperial power. Closer to home, Jesus is a problem for many churches on Main Street who have substituted the values of the culture for His teachings.
In spite of what the Church has done and left undone, millions of people, religious or not, discover that Jesus remains the most compelling figure in the world today. The Church may not be much more credible than the stock brokers, the advertisers, the media, the special interests or the politicians, but Jesus still stands far above the rest of the crowd. Somehow, Jesus has survived all of us who profess His name but too often forget most of what He said.
For example, when Jesus tells us that He will regard the way we treat the hungry, the homeless, the immigrant, the poor family, the sick and the prisoner as if we were treating Him that way, it likely means that He would not think ignoring them is good domestic policy. Or when He tells us to “love your enemies” and that “blessed are the peacemakers,” it might be hard to persuade Him to join “wars against terrorism” with so much “collateral damage” to civilians. And in the wake of U.S. military scandals from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, Jesus would probably have something to say to those who torture America’s enemies.
It is almost as if the real message of Jesus has been kept a secret, utterly disguised by prosperity pastors, television evangelists and radio talk show hosts who preach a conservative American religion across the world, giving a very different impression of Christianity than Jesus taught. The good news is that the “secret” is getting out. Jesus is breaking through, drawing an alienated generation raised in the churches back to His teachings and attracting many outside the religious community to a message they never heard from the pews.
Perhaps because our culture and politics have gone so off course, with values so contrary to those of Jesus, more and more people intuitively recognize that His vision of God’s kingdom—a new world of compassion, justice, integrity and peace—is the Good News they’ve been searching and waiting for.
A fellowship of Christian authors, speakers and activists has recently come together as the Red Letter Christians. We affirm the authority of the whole Bible, not just the explicit sayings of Jesus, often found highlighted in red. We haven’t formed a new organization. We are not from any one church or tradition. We have no particular political agenda.
But we believe that the “red letters” of Jesus need to be focused on again. We feel a calling together in this historical moment to bring back the distinctive message of Jesus for our time, for our world and for the critical issues we face today.
As a fellow Red Letter Christian, Tony Campolo knows that people of faith should not be in the pocket of any political party—that God is not a Republican or a Democrat. So why do we often find this basic wisdom ignored whenever we discuss faith and politics in our churches? It’s time for us to move beyond this silliness.
Rather than being loyal partisans, Christians engaging politics should be the ultimate swing vote, holding both sides accountable to a broader moral vision. The apostle Paul told early believers living in the heart of the Roman Empire to conform to a different moral logic than that which the world had to offer. The same is no less true for us today.
Why? Because believers are informed by a different moral compass, a compass whose true north points us toward Bethlehem rather than Rome (or in the case of many American Christians, Bethlehem rather than Washington, DC).
Over the years Tony Campolo has been my dear friend, colleague and co-conspirator for faith and justice. He’s devoted his life to reshaping how those of us in the Church engage the most heartbreaking realities facing the world today.
With the maturity and depth only an elder statesman can provide, Tony brings his acute moral clarity to issues ranging from abortion to environmental stewardship, global poverty to gay marriage . . . and everythi