EMERGENT CHURCH: TONY CAMPOLO QUOTES

My friend Kenny Oliver of Thinkerup has done a great job of gathering together a bunch of actual quotes from Emergent Evangelical Prophet Tony Campolo. And Oliver is not overstating as he begins by saying:

Some christian leaders look up to Tony Campolo. What’s even more scary is that some christian youth pastors look up to him and consider Campolo to be a mentor of theirs. I get nervous when I realize this.

If you’re a parent or a teenager whose youth pastor mentions his admiration for Tony Campolo please take a look at some of these quotes of his and you let me know if you’re comfortable with anyone looking up to Tony Campolo as a mentor or as a christian leader:

Beyond these models of reconciliation, a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other. (Speaking My Mind, 149)

Apprising Ministries commends Oliver’s diligence here to make sure people can read for themselves how Campolo is drifting even further from anything even resembling orthodoxy. In fact, in Tony Campolo: Advanced Fence-Straddling and Denying the Exclusivity of the Gospel, I showed you that when reporter Don Retson asks Campolo a straight forward question, “Do you believe non-Christians can go to heaven?”, Campolo says, “We preach Jesus, but we have no way of knowing to whom the grace of God is extended.”

And the word “but” is actually a negation of the previous clause in that sentence: We preach Jesus. As in, while we preach Jesus we must also allow that God may extend His grace to others as well who don’t know Jesus. This is the inclusive non-gospel of not only the Emergent Church but also of postevangelicalism itself as I showed you in “All-ee, All-ee In Free” The Universal Appeal of Jesus, which also features the above quote from Campolo.

You can read the entirety of Oliver’s excellent compendium with a veritable cornucopia of Tony Campolo quotes here.