Today many of my friends and collogues in ministry are sharing wonderful stories of their many interactions over the decades with American Baptist pastor, scholar, and advocate Tony Campolo. As most of you know, I didn't grow up in Pennsylvania, nor in an American Baptist Church. Tony's name was not one that I ever heard discussed, in fact I knew little about him until he was invited to speak at First Baptist Church of Linesville (in our French Creek Association) for the Spring Gathering of 2013. Being new to NW PA and the kind of fellowship that associational events and relationships can offer, I had every intention of attending. I'll share the text from my 2013 post on the evening next, but after that make sure you read the next portion because there was a lot more to that story that I didn't share back then.
From 2013: This past spring our regional Baptist association invited Tony Campolo to speak at our annual gathering. The suggested topic for Tony was the problem of complacency among Christians (in other words, what do we do to get people on fire for serving God?). Prior to going to the event, I received a letter written by one of the pastors of our association and signed by all of his board members that condemned the invitation of Tony and warned us that his teachings were dangerous. The letter included snippets of quotes from a variety of Professor Campolo's books, many of which seemed to be out of context. As a former English teacher, seeing quotes taken out of context sends up a huge red flag to me. I went to the meeting, having heard good things about Tony's presentations from my friends, Pastor Jeff Little (First UMC) and Mother Holly (St. John's Episcopal).
What type of message would we hear? Would the Gospel be clear or lost in the social efforts that Tony's critics accuse him of replacing it with?
It is amazing what you can learn when you give someone the chance to share what is on their heart. Throughout his presentation, Tony Campolo gave a heart stirring call to the Church to truly be the servants of Jesus Christ that we have been called to be. The Evangelical nature of his message was beyond doubt, there at the heart of everything he was preaching was the need for each man, woman, and child to find a relationship with God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to turn that relationship into a life-altering experience of righteous living. What more could any believer in the fundamentals of the faith want?
The hype, fodder for television commentators and blog posts, was entirely overblown. The venom directed at Tony from his critics was a farce. If this man's commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not genuine, then nobody who publicly declares their faith in Christ can be trusted. If this man's passion for the Lost is not acceptable to you, then your problem is with the call of Jesus to champion the poor.
Which brings me to his book, Speaking My Mind, which I finished reading today. I won't claim that everything in the book made me happy, nor am I in agreement with all of it, I will however confirm that the passion for the Gospel I found while listening to Tony last spring is part and parcel of his written works as well. Are there things in the book that will cause some Christians to write Tony off as a liberal? Yes. Are there things in the book that those same Christians need to hear because they echo the words of the Gospel? Yes. Do yourself a favor, read the book, think about it, weigh what it says by the scale of Scripture, and then decide what God would have you do about poverty, nationalism, homosexuality, environmentalism, politics, etc.
If you close your mind, you won't be listening to God either. If you truly are committed to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, don't you owe it to God to admit when you are in error? Speaking My Mind may not have all the answers, but at least Tony Campolo was brave enough to ask the questions.
Listening to Tony Campolo in-person certainly put to bed any hesitation to think of him as a positive force for the Church today. He was that and then some. There are two other aspects of that story I'd like to share now in his memory. The first is that I went to the gathering at Linesville with Arlene Harrington. Those from my church remember Arlene fondly, she was the widow of our long-time pastor, John Harrington who served my church for twenty years from 1964-1983. After his passing she moved back to Franklin and rejoined the church where they had spent so many years together. Arlene was a pistol. When I arrived here she told me, "Let me know if you have any trouble with anyone, I lived in that parsonage before you did, I'll handle it." Thankfully, I never had to take Arlene up on her offer, but I appreciate her passion for protecting me as her pastor. We had a wonderful conversation on the drive there about how she used to go to French Creek Association gatherings as a child in her parents' model-T. On our way home after hearing Tony's message we were in the middle of another conversation when I pulled the car over and told Arlene, "I need to go back." She graciously allowed me to follow what my conscience was saying to me, fifteen minutes later we reentered the church to find Tony still talking with the people that remained.
What made me turn the car around? During his message Tony had offered up supporting Compassion International as one way in which those attending could make a difference for the Kingdom in this world. He encouraged us to sponsor a child, holding up pictures of several to inspire us further. I hadn't responded. The reason was simple, my wife and I were still massively in-debt from the decade of multiple part-time jobs that I had struggled through in Michigan before we moved here. The math just didn't work, that's what my mind told me. We were living without much fluff, I couldn't justify $30 per-month, I just didn't have it to spare. But God spoke to me as I drove away from the church, it wasn't an audible voice, but it was real, it was a gut-check moment, and I responded to it.
I told Tony this when there was a break in his conversation with the others who remained, and took one of his cards. I don't remember the words we exchanged 11 years ago, I just remember the impact that his passion for those in need had on my heart.
There is an epilogue to this story. My wife Nicole told me she was pregnant in the Fall of 2014. As previously mentioned, we were still trying to claw our way out of debt, perhaps 50% of my paycheck went to that cause each month. I knew we'd have to tighten our belts even further, and that's what we did. I didn't want to, but I called Compassion International, told them what we were facing, and let our then 18-month-old sponsorship lapse...Fast forward to 2019. We had finally put our debt in the past, our beautiful daughter Clara was 4 years old, it was time to find a way to sponsor another Compassion International child.
That's Sonite. She's the child that my daughter chose to sponsor. I showed Clara pictures of a dozen or so girls born on the same day that she was, and she chose this precious child from Haiti. Clara and Sonite exchange letters, our small connection to her life circumstances teaches my daughter valuable lessons about how blessed we are in life and our obligation to share some of that blessing with the many in our world who are much less fortunate. It is one of the ways that we're trying to mold Clara into the kind of kid whose heart and mind beats like that of Tony Campolo.
"Well done good and faithful servant."
