Tony Campolo's Misguided Letters To A Young Evangelical Christian

In my e-mail today I received an advertisement for a book by Tony Campolo entitled Letters To A Young Evangelical (see http://www.tonycampolo.org/ ). Mr. Campolo prides himself as opposing the Religious Right and Conservatives who he states has hijacked the Gospel of Jesus. Like Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo is a Leftist whose religion is promoting government programs in the name of Christ. And while I applaud the Rev. Campolo's efforts with respect to the plight of the poor, it is rather difficult to understand his condemnation of Religious Conservatives. From a purely spiritual perspective, both the Religious Right and Left are equally condemned in the New Testament, as demonstrated in the article on the Complacent Lukewarm Believer (see http://TheLie.org ). And while the Rev. Campolo's concern for the poor is admirable, if he would focus on his own vision of life without condemning the Pat Robertson's and Jerry Falwell's of the world because they perceive the Gospel from a different perspective of error, perhaps the Rev. Campolo would be able to not only alleviate his own brand of blind ignorance, but also attain a greater degree of success.

In the same way that Jesus asked Nicodemus how he could call himself a teacher, and not understand important spiritual concepts, how can the Rev. Campolo help the poor, without understanding the Laws that control all aspects of life, and are responsible for making the people poor? How can the Rev. Campolo be a religious leader, and not understand Jesus' words that every hair on a man's head is accounted for, and not even a sparrow can fall to the earth apart from the Will of God? (Mt. 10:29-30) So why does the Rev. Campolo blame the Conservatives for his own ignorance of the Laws? Why does Rev. Campolo blame the Religious Right, for the plight of the poor that the Laws of God have brought about and maintained? And that man only has the illusion of freewill is a well established biblical fact (see http://nazirene.org/freewill.htm ). And as demonstrated, the Bible itself forewarns that even the Pharisees who rejected and crucified Jesus, were forced into this role by the Hand of God orchestrating the Laws of Divine Providence to bring the events about in the experience of mankind (see http://messianic.nazirene.org/never_told.htm ). As Paul himself states: “You will say to me then, Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” (Rom 9:19) That all events in this world is brought about by Divine Providence, is affirmed by Paul when he responds to the question “For who resists His will?” and writes: “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, Why did you make me like this, will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” (Rom 9:19-22 NAS). That the Rev. Campolo fails to understand the Laws that both make some men poor, is basically his own blindness to the Laws that cause him to embrace his own variety of spiritual disenfranchisement.

The All-Pervading Power of God is so all-encompassing, that even the apostate teachers and prophets still serve the Lord. Is it not forewarned and written that: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt 7:22-23 NAS). Therefore, it is established that even among those who prophesy, cast out demons, and perform many great miracles in the name of the Lord, they are neither saved, nor are they affirmed by Jesus. Among the earliest of Greek Christians, the most used scripture was the Shepherd of Hermas -- and the Rev. Campolo would do well to learn from its wisdom. In the writings of Clement, the 2^nd century Bishop of Alexandria, it is explained that: “But among the lies, the false prophets also told some true things. And in reality they prophesied ‘in an ecstasy,’ as the servants of the apostate”. Using the early Christian writing known as the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement then explains: “And the Shepherd, the angel of repentance, says to Hermas, of the false prophet: ‘For he speaks some truths. For the devil fills him with his own spirit, if perchance he may be able to cast down any one from what is right.’ All things, therefore, are dispensed from heaven for good, ‘that by the Church may be made known the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal foreknowledge, which He purposed in Christ.’ Nothing withstands God: nothing opposes Him: seeing He is Lord and omnipotent. Further, the counsels and activities of those who have rebelled, being partial, proceed from a bad disposition, as bodily diseases from a bad constitution, but are guided by universal Providence to a salutary issue, even though the cause be productive of disease. It is accordingly the greatest achievement of divine Providence, not to allow the evil, which has sprung from voluntary apostasy, to remain useless, and for no good, and not to become in all respects injurious. For it is the work of the divine wisdom, and excellence, and power, not alone to do good (for this is, so to speak, the nature of God, as it is of fire to warm and of light to illumine), but especially to ensure that what happens through the evils hatched by any, may come to a good and useful issue, and to use to advantage those things which appear to be evils, as also the testimony which accrues from temptation”.

The wisdom that Clement is presenting, is the knowledge of the Laws that all events in this world not only have a pre-existent cause, but that Divine Providence is always exercised in the endeavor to bring about the good in the manner of a Corrective Action in the lives of mankind. In the article on the Complacent Believer ( http://TheLie.org ), it is demonstrated where, as an apostate to the teachings of Jesus, Rev. Campolo is permitted to do some good -- and in like manner, so too is the Conservative Right that he opposes and condemns. That the Rev. Campolo has been blinded by the Laws of God to not only the true spiritual meaning of the Gospel, these same Laws also blind him to the good that the apostates of the Religious Right do in the world. And that both the Religious Right and Left are equally apostates to the Law and the teachings of Jesus -- and both are only capable of perceiving fragments of Truth and performing some good, means that when the Rev. Campolo opposes and condemns the good of the Religious Right, he is in fact bringing judgment upon his own blindness, faith and actions.

While I seriously doubt that the Rev. Campolo will even consider reading the article on the Complacent Believer ( http://TheLie.org ), my greatest concern is that he is attempting to influence young Evangelical Christians to embrace his Leftist Social-Secularist brand of error -- i.e., "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 5:17-20 NIV).

Conservatives would cease to be conservatives, if they supported government programs which by their very Atheist secular objectives, rob the people of their spiritual essence. The poor, are poor, because the Laws of God have forced them into this role -- and while Rev. Campolo's efforts can be applauded, the poor are in dire need of the moral and spiritual standards which is promoted by the Religious Right. Most every Right Wing Conservative Church I have ever seen, all have programs that feed, clothe and house the poor. My own daughters have paid to go on missionary trips where they worked to build houses and alleviate the sufferings of the poor. That the Conservatives do not employ Caesar to do what should be the work of the Congregation -- is drawn from the observation that they recognize the fact that everything that government touches, it spiritually defiles and makes morally unclean. And this is especially true of the diabolical public school system which, especially in the inner cities that the Rev. Campolo is so concerned about, spiritually aborts those children who escape the abortionist who deprives the unborn of it's God-Given Right to life. And if the Rev. Campolo succeeds in seducing young Evangelical Christians to embrace the Marxist Social-Secularism of the Left, then truly the words of Jesus are totally applicable with respect to Tony Campolo: "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt 18:6 NKJ).

Ebionite Mystic