For your reading pleasure...

I happened across an article that I thought was interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about everything in this article, but on the whole, I'm with you Tony.

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Friday, October 26, 2007

The Catchy Name is Catching On (by Tony Campolo)

The name "Red Letter Christians" is catching on! Increasingly within the Christian community (and even in the general public), people are becoming aware of the growing number of us who are basically evangelical in our theology but who shy away from designating ourselves as "evangelicals." They know us to be Christians with a high view of scripture, who affirm the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed, and who believe that salvation comes from surrendering our hearts, minds, and souls to the resurrected Christ — but are reluctant to call ourselves evangelicals. They realize that is because the label "evangelical" has come to be almost synonymous with the "Religious Right." While holding to the same theology as evangelicals, we do not want to be known as being anti-gay, anti-environment, pro-war, anti-feminist, and pro-gun — all of which have been pinned on all evangelicals (perhaps unjustly) by the secular media.

There are critics who do not like our name, nor agree with our progressive social agenda. In the October issue of Christianity Today, there was an editorial in which the columnist explained what he thought was wrong with becoming Red Letter Christians. What was interesting in his critique was that he got us right! He grasped what we were all about – and with great effectiveness. First of all, he described us as people who, when we go to the voting booth, ask whether or not a candidate's tax policies serve the interests of the rich to the detriment of the poor, whether or not there should be policies to stop global warming, and if he or she supports Bush's war policies. See what I mean? He understands us perfectly! They are exactly the kind of questions we believe Red Letter Christians should be asking when they vote.

The second criticism leveled at us in that CT editorial was that by calling ourselves Red Letter Christians, we were giving priority to the words of Jesus, suggesting that what he taught makes earlier teachings in scripture secondary, if not inferior. Again, he has us right!

We believe that the Sermon on the Mount presents a morality that is superior to the justice proposed by Moses. But then, Jesus himself said as much. He is the one who said that while Moses allowed for divorce and remarriage that he had a higher law, and that while the retributive justice of the Hebrew Testament proposed "an eye for an eye" and "a tooth for a tooth," that his new commandment was to love our enemies and overcome evil with good.

Surely, the CT columnist does not intend to put the purity codes of Moses, with all of their kosher regulations, on par with the morality of the red letters in the Bible.

I think we're on to something, and it may be soon that those evangelicals who do not want to be lumped together with Religious Right ideologies soon will be adopting this new name. There is a growing number of evangelicals who, when they find out what we're all about, will say, "That's what we think, too!"

Tony Campolo is founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE) and professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University.

(from God's Politics - http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/10/the-catchy-name-is-catching-on.html)