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.
And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?
Government can run and fund programs, but it can't love, it can't show compassion, and it can't embrace. Our faith is designed to have social implications, not just heavenly ones. The spiritual and the social must be connected.
People first feel things without noticing them, then notice them with inner distress and disturbance, and finally reflect on them with a clear mind.
They tell him that there is no why, since the moment simply is and since all of them are trapped in the moment, like bugs in amber.
I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect
People define gay cinema solely by content: if there are gay characters in it, it’s a gay film... Heterosexuality to me is a structure as much as it is a content. It is an imposed structure that goes along with the patriarchal, dominant structure that constrains and defines society. If homosexuality is the opposite or the counter-sexual activity to that, then what kind of a structure would it be?
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