DavidFWhite3
New Member
Campolo is a featherweight. Although he is an apostle of the wannabe intellectuals, he has little Biblical insight or original thoughts. He offers the standard PC pabulum in evangelical sauce. Tony is an aging Christian hippy who lost his hair. He has never moved beyond the 60’s-70’s mentality of a flower child. He is entertaining and funny but he lacks substance. To some, he is considered intellectual because he spouts the customary liberal clichés. I doubt if he has ever had an original thought even though he does dress up the ordinary liberal line. He’s funny but I don’t take a funny guy seriously.
At best, Tony is a Neo-evangelical; at worse, he is a liberal depending on your definition of liberal. He is an imposter who masquerades as an intellectual and acquires a following of the gullible. Two thumbs down! </font>[/QUOTE]If I had more than two thumbs, I'd put them all down regarding your post. I have heard Campolo on numerous occasions and your words could not be farther from the truth. Insulting is the only word that describes your words here.
Bottom line with a lot of independent fundamental types like you is you don't care about social justice, A MAJOR BIBLICAL THEME. If you did you would be grateful for the Campolo's. Ron Syders and others out of Eastern Baptist in St. David's Pennsylvania. Campolo is no lightweight, and absolutely everything I have ever heard him say personally or in writing is solidly based in scripture, particularly the prophets and the teachings of Jesus.
</font>[/QUOTE]The problem with what you say is that it’s all wrong. Don’t you think that Campolo and Sider have nice, tidy little salaries, benefits and perks at Eastern? Also, their book royalties give a cozy little cushion. I don’t see these guys working in a rescue mission for room and board, caring for children in a children’s home for R & B at a $55/week salary, working with drunks and druggies without salary, etc. I wonder if they would send their grocery money to buy a stethoscope for a native doctor in Ecuador? Would they give $100, that was given to them as a Christmas gift, to a poor family for child with a broken arm to receive medical attention? Real caring about people comes through personal sacrifice.
The problem that I have the caring professed by the PC crowd is that caring is an illusion. It’s easy to spout sentimental clichés and blubber all over creation if it doesn’t cost you anything. The liberals are very caring as long as it’s with someone else’s money. However, they have never embraced caring to the point of personal sacrifice. Let them do some real good by giving of themselves and their lives. And, I am not talking about token gestures but real self-denial and personal sacrifice for the benefit of others. IMHO, Campolo and Sider are long on talk and short on performance. Let them put their money where their mouth is. After all, they have handsomely benefited from their public positions and advocacy. It is rather like the situation with the western Indians. The average Indian family income is much less than the $18,000 annual expenditure per family that the government spends. Who benefits? Not the Indians! It’s all the social workers, program administrators, and advocates who are supposedly helping the Indians. Yes, the caring industry is pretty lucrative! Along the same lines, Campolo and Sider benefit greatly from their caring through the sale of books, speaking engagements and a cushiony professorship at a liberal university.
You are dead WRONG in charging “Bottom line with a lot of independent fundamental types like you is you don't care about social justice, A MAJOR BIBLICAL THEME.” You just don’t know what you’re talking about! It exposes your ignorance. Yes, there are “Yuppie” Fundamentalists who are only concerned about their affluence but my circle of friends and I are not part of that crowd. Don’t make stereotypes!
Oh, I’m sure Tony or Ron give to charity, visit the jails and hospitals, and advocate everyone else doing so but what have they done more than others? Such actions are often compensatory behavior to salve the soul. Have they really given up anything? Pious talk is cheap! Action is what benefits the needy. Have they given up their comfortable careers and homes to serve the poor in destitute nations? I know many, many independent Fundamentalist Baptist missionaries who have. They do not advocate a social movement but they give of themselves and their possessions. By American standards, they have little but they share what they have with the destitute. You ought to read David Livingstone’s thoughts on sacrifice.
Since you confronted and accused me, allow me to challenge you. Are you, personally, willing to move to a lower standard of living and share what you have with the poor? If not, then don’t talk piously to me about the abstract caring of Campolo, Sider, and yourself. Caring or loving is not just a feeling, emotion, or sentiment—it is meeting the need.
1 John 3:16-18 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
James 2:15-16 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Finally, you don’t win arguments with adjectives and cliches. Everyone has a thesaurus and grammar checker with their word processor. Not everyone is lucid and rational though. Your argument lacked content and was a rather nasty personal attack. Of course, that is the standard method--attack the person when you can't refute his argument. </font>[/QUOTE]Please forgive me. But I have been personally involved in many of the actual care giving ministries you speak of because of Tony Campolo's impact on my own life when I heard him speak when I was in college. I responded the way I did because of the way you trashed him in your earlier post. Please understand that my concern is not so much about Campolo, but the issues he champions. He has been a major factor in the lives of countless Christians regarding issues of social justice, and for that we should be thankful for his impact. But you trashed him, so I challenged your assesment.
I have been very much involved in several ministries assisting the suffering, and I am happy to know that you care as well. Seems like ole Tony is impacting the both of us.
Dave
