Evangelical Leaders Judge Tony Campolo’s Theology

A panel says the sociologist’s controversial book is flawed, but not heretical.

A panel of evangelical leaders has determined that Tony Campolo cannot rightly be called a heretic. However, the panel urged the Eastern College sociology professor to clarify in writing certain statements made in his book, A Reasonable Faith (Word). The panel said the book is “methodologically naïve and verbally incautious.”

Campolo, one of the most traveled speakers on the evangelical circuit, became the center of a controversy earlier this year when he was canceled on theological grounds from speaking at Youth Congress ’85 (CT, Sept. 20, 1985, p. 30). The decision was made by Bill Bright, president of Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the sponsoring organizations of the youth conference.

Recently in Chicago, Campolo and Bright appeared before a four-member panel consisting of theologian J. I. Packer, who served as chairman; Gordon MacDonald, president of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship; Earl Radmacher, president of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary; and James Boice, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

Packer said the panel’s purpose was limited, explaining that it had been summoned as part of a process to reconcile Campolo with his critics. The Christian Legal Society (CLS) is coordinating this process. Said Packer, “Our goal was to produce a resource document to help the parties in this case to achieve reconciliation.”

At the one-day meeting in Chicago, the panel questioned Campolo for a total of six hours, calling on him to explain parts of A Reasonable Faith, which Bright had cited as the basis for his cancellation of Campolo. CLS executive director Sam Ericsson said the meeting “was one of the most intense sessions I’ve ever witnessed.… It was a powerful illustration of the Holy Spirit being very active because Christians decided to do it biblically.”

At issue were portions of the book in which Campolo indicated that Jesus lives in all people, whether or not they are Christians. At one point in the book Campolo stated that human-ness and God-ness are one and the same.

Within a few weeks after the meeting, the panel completed a statement evaluating Campolo’s book. Among other things, it said the book contained “some involuntary unorthodoxies of substance as well as some calculated unconventionalities in presentation.” The panel judged that the book should not be considered heretical “since heresy implies a purpose of making novel notions normative.” But it recommended that Campolo put in print some second thoughts on the book “if not indeed to withdraw and/or rewrite it.”

James Sweet, a close friend of Campolo who has been authorized to represent him, said that both he and Campolo were disappointed with the statement’s tone and with some of its substance. “In my view, the CLS did not do what it agreed to do,” Sweet said. Specifically, he said, “we had an agreement that the panel would address the question, ‘Was the cancelation of Tony Campolo from Youth Congress ’85 on theological grounds justified?’ ”

Ericsson said the panel did not have time in a one-day meeting to address all aspects of the controversy, and he lauded what the panel was able to accomplish. “If this had been left up to the legal profession,” he said, “it would have cost each of the parties hundreds of thousands of dollars and years in the courtroom.… The threshold question was the allegation floating around that the book was heretical. Beyond question, the panel found that allegation untrue.”

Although there has been no further action requested by Campolo, Ericsson said he would ask the panel members to issue a statement on whether Bright was justified in canceling Campolo as a Youth Congress ’85 speaker. Ericsson said the panel could probably do this without having to meet again.

Bright prepared for CHRISTIANITY TODAYa statement in response to the panel’s evaluation. In it he thanked CLS and the panel for their willingness “to give so much time and effort to this matter.” He observed that the discussions had been conducted “in a spirit of loving, but searching inquiry.”

EXCERPTS FROM THE PANEL’S STATEMENT

At the request of the Christian Legal Society, J. I. Packer, James Boice, Gordon MacDonald, and Earl Radmacher agreed to help resolve matters between Tony Campolo and Bill Bright. A major step in this reconciliation process was the panel’s assessment of Campolo’s controversial book, A Reasonable Faith (Word). Packer wrote a statement evaluating the book. That statement, which was approved by the other panel members, was drafted as a memorandum to Campolo, Bright, and Laury Eck of the Christian Legal Society.CHRISTIANITY TODAYobtained permission to print excerpts.

Tony’s strategy in [A Reasonable Faith] … is not to criticize secularism in Christian terms, but to respond to it in its own terms.… His book is … a venture in evangelistic apologetics in which Tony, who described himself to us as an amateur theologian and a professional sociologist, seeks to show that persons with a secularist mind-set will still find God if they face the Jesus of the Gospels.…

The book has been dubbed heretical, but since heresy implies a purpose of making novel notions normative for Christian thought, it seems to us that this verdict is not really appropriate.…

We view [A Reasonable Faith] as an experiment in conceptualizing and communicating key biblical truths in a novel mode for a secularist readership. The experiment did not fully succeed, and resulted in some involuntary unorthodoxies of substance as well as some calculated unconventionalities in presentation.…

The points of clear unorthodoxy that we found relate to Christology. First, by assimilating two distinct biblical uses of image-of-God language (one of human beings, one of God’s Son) Tony reaches the point of saying “humanness and Godness are one in the same,” “Jesus was God because he was fully human.” We interpret this as a confusion. True humanness is certainly God’s moral image, but the Son is the Father’s image ontologically within the unity of the eternal Trinity, and no human creature can ever share that.…

Tony affirms that the risen Christ is personally present in every human being.… Even if we accept [Campolo’s] very unlikely exegesis of “these my brothers” in Matthew 25:40 as denoting all poor and needy folk as such, Tony’s view here goes far beyond it, in terms that no statement in Scripture about salvation will support.… We ascribe this unbiblical faux pas to evangelistic inadvertence rather than any wish to insinuate universal salvation or justification by works.…

We recognize [Campolo’s] evangelistic purpose in equating the risen Jesus whom we meet in other persons with God, and we acquit him of any intention of teaching any form of modalism or unitarianism, although his repeated statement that Jesus “incarnates God” suggests heterodoxy and does not square with biblical trinitarianism.…

We judge that the sociologist’s professionalism and the evangelist’s instinct for identifying with his audience—both of which qualities bulk large in Tony—overrode his theological awareness as a biblical Christian.…

Since the points we’ve noted are likely to trouble thoughtful, evangelical readers as a body, we urge Tony to put in print some kind of “second thoughts” on his book, if not indeed to withdraw and/or rewrite it. If Tony felt able … to acknowledge in print that the misunderstandings that have arisen were understandable … we are confident that all accusations of heresy could be withdrawn and decently buried. Tony’s ministry as a brilliant communicator of biblical realities could then continue with full fruitfulness.…

Bright emphasized that he does not view himself as an adversary of Campolo, affirming him as “a man to whom God has given extraordinary gifts.” Bright said their differences were theological, not personal, and that the “differences between us on A Reasonable Faith … are differences not so much between the two of us as between some positions he takes in the book and the long-standing positions on those matters that have been held by evangelicals as a whole.”

Bright said the panel demonstrated sensitively “why numerous evangelicals have been deeply concerned about several theological aspects” of Campolo’s book. “As far as next steps are concerned,” he said, “I am particularly hopeful that, as the panel suggested, Dr. Campolo will in coming months decide to deal with these points in writing.”

Campolo already has prepared a six-page document titled “Some Second Thoughts on A Reasonable Faith.” He wrote that the recent discussion “enabled me to discover some shortcomings in my book.” He acknowledged that there is an “ontological difference between the image of God revealed in normative persons, and the image of God as it is revealed in Jesus.”

Campolo also differentiated between “the ‘general grace’ which humanizes in part and the ‘saving grace’ which humanizes fully and gives the gift of eternal life. The latter comes only in surrender to the Lordship of Christ.”

While he modified some of his theological positions, he maintained the legitimacy of his interpretation of Matthew 25, stating that “one way in which Christ meets us is by presenting Himself to us through the poor and oppressed.”

In defending this as a standard evangelical interpretation, Campolo wrote, “World Vision and Compassion International both use this interpretation when appealing for funds for the hungry in Third World countries. Prison Fellowship uses this interpretation when appealing for volunteers to work with prisoners.”

Of the Chicago meeting, Campolo wrote, “These brothers exercised ‘tough love’ and used our time together to build me up in Christ, correct me and show me how to be more faithful to the word of God.… This is good news for all of us who want to get on with the business of declaring the Good News.”

ABORTION

New Arguments On An Old Issue

The U.S. Supreme Court last month heard arguments on a pair of abortion cases. Its ruling on them, expected early next year, could clarify whether states may restrict abortion.

The cases weigh a state’s interest in protecting the unborn child against a pregnant woman’s right to determine if she will give birth.

One of the cases, Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, focuses on a Pennsylvania law requiring parental consent for unmarried minors who want abortions. The law instructs doctors to provide a detailed description of the abortion process and the accompanying risks. It also requires doctors to distribute literature about alternatives and about the unborn child itself.

The second case, Diamond v. Charles, was argued before the Court the same day as Thornburgh. In it, a Chicago-based prolife legal group, Americans United for Life (AUL), defended an Illinois law that makes it a crime for a doctor to kill a child that survives an abortion. The law also requires doctors to inform patients that some contraceptives, including the intrauterine device, actually cause spontaneous abortion by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.

Neither case directly addresses the fundamental goal of the prolife movement: to reverse the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion throughout pregnancy. But the cases are part of a legal strategy to chip away at that landmark ruling by continually challenging lower court decisions that prohibit states from addressing abortion as they see fit.

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Charles Fried asked to speak at oral arguments on these cases but was turned down by the Court. On behalf of the Reagan administration, Fried had filed a friend-of-the-court brief prodding the Court to reconsider its 1973 decision. The brief called Roe v. Wade “a source of such instability in the law that this Court should reconsider that decision and, on reconsideration, abandon it.”

The Illinois and Pennsylvania cases closely resemble an Ohio abortion case the Supreme Court heard in 1983. Then, it endorsed its 1973 decision, effectively stripping more than half the states of various restrictions on abortion. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor led a vigorous opposition, arguing that the Court’s 1973 decision is “on a collision course with itself.” While later-term abortions are becoming medically safer and more widely accepted, fetuses are able to live outside the womb at earlier stages of development due to advancing technology. A Supreme Court ruling on the two cases before it is expected early next year.

THE PHILIPPINES

Cults Terrorize Remote Villages

Earlier this year, during a meeting with U.S. officials, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos credited armed cultists for gains made against the leftist New People’s Army. He said various sect members and cultists have helped government troops gain momentum in their drive against Communist insurgents.

It is believed that more than 30 cults—not all of them armed—operate on the island of Mindanao. “Leaders of these groups play on fear and ignorance,” said Al Guangco, of Task Force Detainees (TFD), a Catholic human rights group. “They use religion, superstition, rituals, folk Christianity, and utopian language with its promises of a promised land and eternal life to get and hold their followers.”

According to a study prepared during a recent meeting, most of the cult members are poor and uneducated, and come from extremely isolated areas. Some members are lured by leaders with charismatic personalities who often present themselves as God-like figures, promising a future free of sickness, hunger, and death. Many groups use amulets or oils that leaders claim render the user invincible. The promise of invincibility, coupled with a passionate anti-Communism make the cults a prime recruiting ground for the Philippine military.

Several TFD offices keep files on the fanatical groups. The files include incidents of murder, massacre, and arson attributed to members of armed sects.

In the town of Midsalip, 69 persons were slain between October 1984 and May 1985. Most of Midsalip’s residents live in small, isolated, mountain barrios miles from the town center. The New People’s Army, members of the paramilitary Integrated Civilian Home Defense Forces, and unknown assailants were blamed for the violence.

“Most of the victims were … butchered,” said Marcus Keyes, the Midsalip parish priest. “These were not normal cases of … [execution]. Before the victims were slain, their ears were sliced off and eaten by the killers, who believe that in doing so they take in the spirit of their victims.”

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

NORTH AMERICAN SCENE

FREEDOM

Linscott Leaves Prison

After more than three years in prison, Steven Linscott last month walked out of the Centralia (Ill) Correctional Institute. The former Bible school student was convicted of murder in 1982. Linscott is free on bond while the Illinois Supreme Court reviews an appeals court reversal of his murder conviction. From the beginning, the case has taken a number of unexpected turns. A jury found Linscott guilty based on circumstantial forensic evidence and a dream he had about a violent murder (CT, Feb. 4, 1983, p. 42). Linscott had the dream on the same night a woman in his neighborhood was killed. Prosecutors said Linscott knew details of the crime only the murderer could have known.

Linscott’s lawyers appealed the case to a state appellate court, which in August reversed the murder conviction on grounds of insufficient evidence. The state then appealed the case to the Illinois Supreme Court. If the supreme court affirms the appeals court ruling, Linscott’s record would be cleared. However, if the state’s highest court reverses the appeals court ruling, Linscott would be returned to prison. The case would then go back to the lower court, which would rule on questions of procedural error in the first trial. A supreme court ruling is expected next year.

NEW YORK STATE

A Magazine Cover-up

The state of New York has enacted a law requiring retailers to cover obscene photographs on the covers of pornographic magazines. The statute bans the display of “offensive sexual material” in stores or areas of public access where entrance fees or minimum-age requirements are not imposed. Violators face fines of up to $ 1,000 and jail sentences of up to six months.

Six Connecticut cities enacted similar laws over the past seven months. Observers say the so-called display laws are gaining popularity across the country. Said Paul McGeady, a lawyer for Morality in Media: “More and more city councils and state legislatures are recognizing that display laws are effective in regulating traffic in pornography.”

Drafters of the New York law say they expect the statute to withstand court challenges because it restricts display, a form of advertising known as commercial speech, rather than free speech.

BOY SCOUTS

Questions About God

The Boy Scouts of America changed its rules on religion after a controversy erupted over a 15-year-old member who does not believe in a supreme being.

Earlier this year, Paul Trout, of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, was denied the scouts’ second-highest rank after he said he does not believe in God. Trout was also expelled from his scout troop.

Boy Scouts of America representative Raul Chavez said the organization’s refusal to grant Trout the rank of Life Scout was heavily criticized. National Boy Scouts officials subsequently decided to delete language from the organization’s literature that defines God as a supreme being. The officials also instructed troop leaders not to question their members about specific religious beliefs.

However, the organization’s national executive board passed a resolution reaffirming the Boy Scout Oath, which requires duty to God. “While not intending to define what constitutes belief in God,” the resolution read, “the Boy Scouts of America is proud to reaffirm the Scout Oath and its declaration of duty to God.” Said Chavez: “The main thing is that we are not defining God.” As a result of the changes, Trout has been reinstated as a member of his scout troop and awarded the rank of Life Scout.

OBITUARY

Charles Keysor Dies at 60

Charles W. Keysor, founder of the Good News evangelical caucus in the United Methodist Church, died in October in Clearwater, Florida. He was 60.

Keysor was ordained by the Methodist Church, a predecessor body of the United Methodist Church. In 1966 he wrote an article, published in the now-defunct Christian Advocate magazine, describing the beliefs of Methodist evangelicals. The following year he founded the Forum for Scriptural Christianity in the Methodist Church, popularly known as the Good News movement. The movement spawned a variety of evangelical alternatives to United Methodist programs, including a women’s group, a mission agency, and materials used in confirmation classes.

In 1981 Keysor resigned his leadership post with Good News to teach journalism at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. The following year he transferred his church membership and ordination to the Evangelical Covenant Church. He and his wife, Marge, moved to Clearwater, Florida, in 1983, where Keysor pastored a newly formed Evangelical Covenant congregation. He died of cancer at his home on October 22.

SATELLITE CONFERENCE

World’s Largest Linkup

Campus Crusade for Christ later this month will sponsor the largest closed-circuit satellite teleconference ever held. As many as 600,000 persons are expected to participate.

Called “Explo 85,” the network of conferences will be held at more than 95 sites in some 55 countries and territories, including 12 cities in the United States. Training sessions held during Explo 85 will focus on evangelism and discipleship.

A satellite linkup will carry live transmissions to the sites during the last four days of the conference. Broadcasts will originate from Seoul, South Korea; Nairobi, Kenya; Manila, Philippines; Mexico City; West Berlin; and San Bernardino, California. The broadcasts will feature addresses from Campus Crusade president Bill Bright; evangelists Billy Graham and Luis Palau; West African Christian leader Kassoum Keita; and Korean pastor Joon Gon Kim.

WORLD SCENE

GREECE

Appeal Date Set

A Greek court will review in May the conviction of three men on charges of proselytism.

Late last year, Don Stephens, Alan Williams, and Costas Macris were sentenced to three-and-one-half years in prison (CT, Feb. 1, 1985, p. 61). They are free, pending the appeal of their conviction. Macris, a well-known Greek evangelist, is head of the Hellenic Missionary Union. Stephens, an American, heads Mercy Ships International, a maritime relief organization. Williams, a British subject, also works for Mercy Ships International.

Greece enacted a law against proselytism in 1938. Observers say the law helps protect the Greek Orthodox Church—Greece’s state church—against competition from minority faiths.

The charges being appealed stem from the conversion in 1982 of Kostas Kotoupolon, who was 16 at the time. Mercy

Ships International gave the boy a modern-language Greek New Testament and referred him to a youth meeting conducted by Macris. Kotoupolon later committed his life to Christ.

Human rights groups have said Greece is violating the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to practice religious faith and to change religions. If efforts to overturn the proselytism conviction are unsuccessful, Stephens, Williams, and Macris face immediate imprisonment.

THE NETHERLANDS

Outlawing Child Pornography

The city of Amsterdam has the reputation of being a major source of child pornography, including videotapes, illustrated books, and magazines. Last year, U.S. Customs Service commissioner William von Raab described the Dutch city as “sort of the 1984 version of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

That image is changing, however. The Dutch Parliament recently passed a law that prohibits the manufacture, production, and distribution of pictorial material depicting children under 16 participating in sexual acts. Offenders could face three-month jail sentences, fines of nearly $3,000, and the confiscation of any property associated with child pornography operations.

Although the law does not take effect until July, U.S. customs officials say child pornography is scarce in Amsterdam. Instead, they say, much of the child pornography is being produced in Southeast Asia, where widespread poverty makes it easier to recruit children.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

A National Drinking Problem

Beer consumption doubles every four to five years in Papua New Guinea, a country that occupies part of an island north of Australia. Cases of beer are often more valuable than pigs in the country’s exchange system.

A study conducted by the Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research concluded that Papua New Guinea is “poised on the brink of an eruption of serious alcohol problems.” Theodore Hilpert, an American Lutheran Church missionary who directs an alcohol abuse program, says the study underestimated the seriousness of the problem.

In studies conducted at one school, Hilpert found that as many as 81 percent of the students are addicted to alcohol. He adds that women are drinking in ever-increasing numbers. The drinking problem is contributing to an increase in social ills, including deteriorating family structures, spouse abuse, and street crime.

Papua New Guineans were introduced to beverage alcohol by white explorers, miners, and plantation owners. “Liquor came to be thought of as part of the white man’s magic,” Hilpert says. “It was seen as giving him his size and his wisdom.”

INDIA

Aid Denied

India’s supreme court has ruled that members of “scheduled castes” lose their claim to special government aid when they convert to Christianity. However, the court said they are entitled to the aid if they convert back to Hinduism.

Members of scheduled castes—formerly called “untouchables”—qualify for financial aid. They also benefit from a policy under which government jobs, seats in Parliament, and educational posts are reserved for them. An estimated 144 million of India’s 684 million people belong to scheduled castes.

The supreme court ruling came in a dismissal of lawsuits filed by Indians who had converted to Christianity. One plaintiff had been excluded from a government self-employment project when he became a Christian.

In dismissing the suit, the court reasoned that Christians in scheduled castes are not as severely oppressed within the Christian community as are Hindu “untouchables” in the Hindu community.

SOUTH AFRICA

Baptists Oppose Apartheid

The Baptist Union of Southern Africa is urging South African President P. W. Botha to take the lead in abolishing apartheid. The action, taken at the denomination’s annual assembly, marked the first time the Baptist Union has urged the dismantling of South Africa’s system of racial separation.

The church issued a 12-point approach to achieve “true Christian justice,” calling apartheid “an evil which needs to be repented of.” The statement called for an end to the government-imposed state of emergency; full participation of all races in a single parliament; a unified national education system with equal standards and facilities for all; and the unconditional release of political prisoners.

The Baptist Union of Southern Africa is made up of members from South Africa’s four racial groups: black, colored, Indian, and white.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.