Those issues are biblical issues: to care for the sick, to feed the hungry, to stand up for the oppressed. I contend that if the evangelical community became more biblical, everything would change.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the moral obligations to help others and suggests that adherence to biblical principles could transform society.
In this quote, Tony Campolo underscores the importance of addressing social issues such as healthcare, hunger, and social justice, framing them as core biblical responsibilities. He argues that if the evangelical community fully embraced these biblical teachings, it could lead to significant positive changes in society, reflecting the idea that faith should inspire practical action in the world.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the role of faith in social action.
When in fact we live in a society that makes life hell for gays and lesbians, this community has got to stand up and say, ‘We’re on your side as you struggle for dignity,’ and, ‘Yes, we will defy anybody who says otherwise, even if we have to go to Disneyland to prove it.’
Your past is important but it is not nearly as important to your present as the way you see your future.
There are 2,000 verses of Scripture that tell us we must be committed to protecting the poor and the oppressed... There is no concern of Scripture that is addressed so often and so powerfully as reaching out to the poor.
Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways.
I don't know how your theology works, but if Jesus has a choice between stained glass windows and feeding starving kids in Haiti, I have a feeling he'd choose the starving kids in Haiti.
Jesus never says to the poor: ‘come find the church’, but he says to those of us in the church: ‘go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned.
I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night
I know what good morals are,_x000D_ but you're supposed to disregard good morals when you're living in a crazy, bad world. If you're in hell, how can you live like an angel? You're surrounded by devils,trying to be an angel? That's like suicide.
Every institution is inherently demonic.
Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.
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