Tony Campolo


Anthony "Tony" Campolo is an American sociologist, pastor, author, public speaker and former spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. Campolo is known as one of the most influential leaders in the evangelical left and has been a major proponent of progressive thought and reform within the evangelical community. He has also become a leader of the Red-Letter Christian movement, which aims to put emphasis on the teachings of Jesus. Campolo is a popular commentator on religious, political, and social issues, and has been a guest on programs such as The Colbert Report, The Charlie Rose Show, Larry King Live, Nightline, Crossfire, Politically Incorrect and The Hour.

Biography

Campolo graduate of Eastern College in 1956, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and earned a PhD from Temple University. He was ordained Baptist minister and evangelist.

Ministry

He was a professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University in St. David's, Pennsylvania.
He became an associate pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, which is affiliated with both the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. and the American Baptist Churches USA. He commuted often to the church from his home in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. For ten years, he was a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Campolo founded the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, which works to help "at-risk" youth in the U.S. and Canada, and has helped to establish several schools and universities. His best known work is a sermon entitled It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!, recordings of which have been widely circulated in evangelical circles, and which is based on a sermon by a black minister at Mount Carmel Baptist Church. He is a frequent speaker at Christian conferences. He was also one of several spiritual advisers to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal where he met with president Clinton at the White House.
Although he has associated himself with the Democratic Party and several other modern liberal groups and causes, he has publicly stated his opposition to abortion. Campolo holds a consistent life ethic stance in opposition to any human situation that leads to the termination of life including warfare, poverty/starvation, capital punishment, and euthanasia.
Starting in the late 1980s, his left-leaning political beliefs began to put leaders of the Christian right, such as Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell, at odds with Campolo.
Despite his criticisms of the politically conservative evangelical community, Campolo has also criticized the more liberal mainline Christian denominations because "they fail to emphasize a personal, transforming relationship with Jesus Christ."
Campolo was the subject of an informal heresy hearing in 1985 brought about by several assertions in his 1983 book A Reasonable Faith, particularly his claim that, "Jesus is actually present in each other person". The book became a hot button issue, and the controversy caused Campus Crusade for Christ and Youth for Christ to block a planned speaking engagement by Campolo. The Christian Legal Society empowered a "reconciliation panel", led by noted theologian J. I. Packer, to examine the issue and resolve the controversy. The panel examined the book and questioned Campolo. The panel issued a statement saying that although it found Campolo's statements "methodologically naïve and verbally incautious", it did not find them to be heretical.
On January 14, 2014, Campolo announced his plans to retire from leading the EAPE and to close that ministry. The extra money in the ministry will be distributed to offshoot ministries started by EAPE; however, he plans to continue writing and speaking.

TV show

Beginning in March 2011, Tony began hosting the TV show Red Letter Christians, aired on JC-TV. This weekly half-hour talk show features interviews with leaders in the Red-Letter Christian movement.

LGBT sexuality debates

Along with his wife Peggy Campolo, he has participated in very public debates and discussions about the place of lesbians and gays within church and society. Campolo formerly contended that homosexuality was a sin in practice, although not in orientation, while his wife disagreed, holding that committed, monogamous homosexual practice was not a sin; she supports full equality for homosexual, bisexual and transsexual persons. Regarding marriage, he states that all couples should have the right to a civil union with all the legal rights that are associated with such a contract.
I propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and, instead, only give legal status to civil unions. The government should do this for both gay couples and straight couples and, leave marriage in the hands of the Church and other religious entities.

On June 8, 2015, Campolo released a statement changing his position on the issue of gay relationships, and stating that he now supported full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church. He cited several reasons including the institution of marriage primarily being about spiritual growth instead of procreation, what he had learned through his friendships with gay Christian couples, and past examples of exclusionary church traditions practiced "by sincere believers, but most of us now agree that they were wrong."

Family

Campolo's son is Bart Campolo, a former evangelical preacher who left Christianity and transitioned to secular humanism. The two have engaged in an ongoing conversation since Bart announced to him that he no longer believes in God. They have co-authored a book exploring the issues at the heart of this conversation, and a documentary film was released in 2018 which features the conversations between them and tell the story of Bart's journey out of faith.

Published works