IT ALL COMES DOWN TO LOVE – a chat with Evangelical leader, Tony Campolo [LDT058]

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For a long time now, the progressive Evangelical movement has been growing and deepening to the point where much of the best progressive work has been done by Evangelicals. One of the main leaders in that phenomenon is my guest today, Dr. Tony Campolo.

Tony, who is a sociology professor in his day job at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, has, with Jim Wallis and others, lead in the articulation of a progressive and very Christian way of looking at the problems in our world. He’s been involved in every issue. Last July, on the stage at the Wild Goose Festival, he told Brian McLaren and the rest of us that he is, after many years of holding back, taking on the issue of justice for LGBT people, in all areas of life. We talk about this in the interview. This is an issue that has kept many Evangelicals tied in knots for decades, with sexual codes on one side and Jesus’ teachings about love and acceptance on the other. The result of taking this stand has had a big effect on the Evangelical world and on Tony’s life.

He’s also one of the founders of the Red Letter Christians movement, where the red (i.e. spoken by Jesus) words in the Bible are pushed to the center to be taken very seriously by Christians.