Tony Campolo and Graham Joseph Hill discuss Red Letter Christianity, and the transforming power of humility, self-sacrifice, and love. The Global Church Project episode #155. Full interview. See www.TheGlobalChurchProject.com
Tony Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University and a former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. For 40 years, he led the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization which he founded to create and support programs serving needy communities. More recently, Dr. Campolo has provided leadership for the progressive Christian movement, Red Letter Christians as well as, for the Campolo Center for Ministry, a program which provides support to those the church has called to full-time ministry. He has written more than 35 books and can be found blogging regularly on tonycampolo.org and redletterchristians.org. Tony and his wife Peggy live near Philadelphia and have two children and four grandchildren.
In November 2012, Tony Campolo received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Youth Worker’s Convention. The wording on the award is: “Award of Lifetime Achievement is proudly presented to Tony Campolo who has defined and courageously pioneered what is means to encourage, care and lead students, possessing the qualities that inspire us and provoke us to continue the journey into the future with boldness and confidence. As a result of Tony’s life of ministry and leadership he has left a legacy of encouragement and hope to youth workers and students everywhere.” (Biography taken from www.tonycampolo.org).
About Red Letter Christians (from www.redletterchristians.org):
Staying true to the foundation of combining Jesus and justice, Red Letter Christians mobilizes individuals into a movement of believers who live out Jesus’ counter-cultural teachings.
The goal of Red Letter Christians is simple: To take Jesus seriously by endeavoring to live out His radical, counter-cultural teachings as set forth in Scripture, and especially embracing the lifestyle prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount.
By calling ourselves Red Letter Christians, we refer to the fact that in many Bibles the words of Jesus are printed in red. What we are asserting, therefore, is that we have committed ourselves first and foremost to doing what Jesus said. Jesus calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate contemporary America. Instead, he calls us to meet the needs of the poor. He also calls us to be merciful, which has strong implications in terms of war and capital punishment. After all, when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he probably means we shouldn’t kill them.
