Tony Campolo
Tony Campolo
Anthony "Tony" Campolois an American sociologist, pastor, author, public speaker and former spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. Campolo is known as one of the most influential leaders in the Evangelical left and has been a major proponent of progressive thought and reform within the evangelical community. He has also become a leader of the Red-Letter Christian movement, which aims to put emphasis on the teachings of Jesus. Campolo is a popular commentator on religious, political, and social issues,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionClergyman
CountryUnited States of America
My task as a citizen is to get the government to do more good and less inefficient and wasteful work.
Insofar as the church fails to do the will of God, I am called upon to help it discover and to do the will of God; and I am called upon to help the government to do the same.
While I can see how the government has, at times, wasted taxpayers' money, and I can admit that too often its programs are ineffective, I also can see the good that government does.
I propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and, instead, only give legal status to civil unions.
From the beginning, there have been some religious leaders who greeted the funding of faith-based social services by government with ambivalence.
Clinton's successor in the White House, George W. Bush, was committed to expanding government spending for faith-based initiatives.
Getting the government to put money into social programs run by religious institutions is a practice that started during the Clinton years, when Bill Clinton advocated the AmeriCorps program.
If marriage really is a sacred institution, then why is the government controlling it, especially in a nation that affirms separation of church and state?
But I think it's up to a local congregation to determine whether or not a marriage should be blessed of God. And it shouldn't be up to the government.
When there is conflict between what God requires and the demands of the government, each of us has an important decision to make concerning taxes.
After-school tutoring programs, care for the elderly, shelters for the homeless, disaster relief work, and a variety of other services would all benefit from government funding.
We all want to buy sneakers at bargain prices at WalMart. Children have to be exploited in factories in Thailand to produce them. If we want to stop that over in Thailand, we've got to be able to pay a price here in the United States.
Most Evangelicals have the church to thank for the Sunday-school classes that taught us what the Bible says and paved the way for our eventual decisions to commit our lives to Christ.
Through the ages, God has used the church to keep alive and pass down the story of what Christ has done for us.