Famed evangelist and social activist Tony Campolo dies at 89: Why the temptation he faced is relevant to us all
The Daily Article
The Denison Forum
4.9 • 576 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tony Campolo, the world-famous evangelist and social justice preacher, died Tuesday at the age of eighty-nine. Today we discuss his life, his ministry, and his legacy. Campolo’s story illustrates a challenge we all face; the stronger our passions, the greater this temptation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good day and welcome to the Daily Article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins, narrating today's daily article, written by Denison Forum co-founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison. |
| 0:14.3 | Tony Campolo, the world-famous evangelist and social justice preacher, died Tuesday at the age of 89. When I heard the news, I debated |
| 0:23.5 | whether or not to write on it. Many of you may be too young to know why Campolo's ministry matters. |
| 0:29.6 | Those of us familiar with him know that his story is problematic on several levels. I worry that |
| 0:35.1 | my comments might violate the biblical warning from James 4, |
| 0:38.5 | verse 11, do not speak evil against one another, brothers. Then, I decided that there is a larger |
| 0:44.8 | principle at work here that applies to each of us, whatever we may think about Reverend Campolo |
| 0:50.1 | and his legacy. Tony Campolo was born a second-generation Italian immigrant in 1935. His family |
| 0:57.6 | attended an American Baptist congregation in West Philadelphia until it shut down as white people |
| 1:03.4 | fled their African-American neighbors for the suburbs. Tony's father then took his family to a black |
| 1:09.3 | Baptist church nearby where they worshipped. |
| 1:11.6 | As a student at Eastern College, now a university, Campolo studied John Wesley, the father of Methodism, in a class on Christian classics. |
| 1:21.6 | He said he was moved by the Wesleyan Revival with its social consciousness, attacking slavery, championing the rights of women, |
| 1:29.5 | ending child labor laws. Campolo added, |
| 1:32.2 | The Wesleyan version was warm-hearted evangelism with an incredible social vision, trying to see the |
| 1:38.8 | world as he saw it changed me greatly. End quote. As a young pastor, Campolo experienced racism in his church and community. |
| 1:47.3 | He left his church to get a doctorate in sociology and took a teaching position at Eastern |
| 1:52.4 | in 1964, where he encouraged students to volunteer with children in Philadelphia. |
| 1:58.0 | He also helped start a school in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. To recruit |
| 2:02.7 | students and raise money for ongoing projects, he began accepting speaking invitations. At one point, |
| 2:09.1 | he was speaking 500 times a year. Campolo clearly identified with evangelicals writing in 2015, |
| 2:16.1 | I surrendered my life to Jesus and trusted in him |
... |
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