The Humanitarian Jesus Interview Series

Tony Campolo 

If you don’t know Tony Campolo you should want to.  Not because you will agree with everything he says, but because you can’t disagree with his passion and relentless pursuit of doing things better. 

When we sat down in an old hall at Eastern University, I didn’t expect to leave understanding him completely, but I also didn’t expect to leave respecting him as much as I did.  It wasn’t that I agreed with everything he said, but at 33, I was struck by the intensity and irreverence to ideology and labels I discovered in a man of 75 years who had advised at least one president and countless other leaders and students.  The following few minutes of text is how our hour + interview launched off...

CB:  As you look at the landscape of American Christianity coming out of the Bush era and into the Obama era, do you see the dialogue changing?   TC:  It's a very mixed bag.  There are many good signs and there are many bad signs.  It's question of how you view things.  The glass may be half full or half empty as the old saying goes.  I think the economic downturn, contrary to a lot of sociologists, is one of the best things that could have happened to America.   A lot of Christian people are upset because they feel the old ways was what Christians were entitled to.  It was a lifestyle in which we were 6% of the world's population consuming 43% of the world's resources.  We just couldn't go on as a consumeristic society at the level of consumerism that had marked us over the last 40 years, some would say.  It was an immoral lifestyle.  There was no justification for living with the kind of affluence that had marked our lifestyles as had been the case.  In simple language, we were spending about, this is sociological, at least 65% of our income on "stuff" that nobody really needed.  And while we were buying "stuff" that nobody needed, half the world was trying to survive on less than $2.00 a day.  That affluent, obscenely, consumptive lifestyle has been challenged by the economic recession and I almost see the hand of God in it.   

CB: The church has been largely silent on materialism, but traditionally vocal on “conservative” moral issues.  Has Obama and the downturn changed that?  

TC:  I think more than Obama, prime spokespersons in this country like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, have become very, very sensitive to the needs of the poor.  While Franklin Graham and I would not be on the same page on a lot of issues, I think more and more, we are moving to the same page.  What he's been doing for poor people around the world has been notable and it has to be chalked up to a social consciousness that might not have been quite as evident 10 years ago.   On the other hand, I think that the liberal church mentality that understood Christianity as simply a social justice program has also been challenged.  Not only is there an economic downturn, but every major denomination is hemorrhaging and losing members at a rate that staggers the imagination.  And so suddenly, they have become very, very cognizant of the need to win people to Jesus Christ on a personal level.  Because in the effort to declare the Kingdom of God on Earth, there has been the rediscovery of the ideas that you can't have a Kingdom without Kingdom people.  You can't transform the world unless you have agents of transformation and evangelism. 

CB:  So are we moving left or right?   

TC:  Perhaps both. I think we are recognizing that if Christ is in you, you will be opposed to torture.  If Christ is in you, you will raise questions about war.  If Christ is in you, you will be environmentally concerned.  Christianity is about inviting people into a relationship with Christ and Christ will then make these persons into agents of social change.  When Christ comes in, He begins to change your thinking and your feeling and the more Christ like you become, in this process of being transformed, the more the things that have moved the heart of God will move your heart.  That will make you into a radical in terms of social justice issues. 

About the Book and Interviews  “A corrective and a call to action all in one, Humanitarian Jesus shows that evangelism and humanitarian works can and should coexist harmoniously. In an accessible and non-academic style, Christian Buckley and Ryan Dobson outline the biblical case for social and humanitarian investment and engage the topic through interviews with leading Christian thinkers, activists, and humanitarian workers—including Franklin Graham, Gary Haugen, Ron Sider, Tony Campolo, Francis Chan, Mark Batterson, David Batstone, and more.”  For a complete list of interviews and more information go to humanitarianjesus.com.