An Interview with Tony Campolo

Evangelical Christianity Has Been Hijacked:An Interview with Tony Campolo

It’s a common perception that evangelical Christians are conservative on issues like gay marriage, Islam, and womens roles. Is this the case?

Well, there’s a difference between evangelical and being a part of the Religious Right. A significant proportion of the evangelical community is part of the Religious Right. My purpose in writing the book was to communicate loud and clear that I felt that evangelical Christianity had been hijacked.

When did it become anti-feminist? When did evangelical Christianity become anti-gay? When did it become supportive of capital punishment? Pro-war? When did it become so negative towards other religious groups?

There are a group of evangelicals who would say, “Wait a minute. Were evangelicals but we want to respect Islam. We dont want to call its prophet evil. We dont want to call the religion evil. We believe that we have got to learn to live in the same world with our Islamic brothers and sisters and we want to be friends. We do not want to be in some kind of a holy war.”

We also raise some very serious questions about the support of policies that have been detrimental to the poor. When I read the voter guide of a group like the Christian Coalition, I find that they are allied with the National Rifle Association and are very anxious to protect the rights of people to buy even assault weapons. But they dont seem to be very supportive of concerns for the poor, concerns for trade relations, for canceling Third World debts.

In short, theres a whole group of issues that are being ignored by the Religious Right and that warrant the attention of Bible-believing Christians. Another one would be the environment.

I dont think that John Kerry is the Messiah or the Democratic Party is the answer, but I dont like the evangelical community blessing the Republican Party as some kind of God-ordained instrument for solving the worlds problems. The Republican Party needs to be called into accountability even as the Democratic Party needs to be called into accountability. So its that double-edged sword that Im trying to wield.