Tony Campolo > Quotes

“I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”
― Tony Campolo

“But isn't it time for Christians to admit that we should reject bargains if they are gained by the exploitation of the poorest of the poor in developing countries?”
― Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

“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.”
― Tony Campolo

“Perhaps because our culture and politics have gone so off course, with values so contrary to those of Jesus, more and more people intuitively recognize that His vision of God's kingdom-a new world of compassion, justice, integrity and peace- is the Good News they've been searching and waiting for.”
― Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

“If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America.”
― Tony Campolo

“Because I am not yet living up to what Jesus expects me to be in those red letters in the Bible, I always define myself as somebody who is saved by God's grace and is on his way to becoming a Christian. (...) Being saved is trusting in what Christ did for us, but being Christian is dependent on the way we respond to what he did for us.”
― Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

“Your past is important, but it is not nearly as important to your present as the way you see your future.”
― Tony Campolo

“Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy and fulfilment he gives you right now?”
― Tony Campolo

“He [William Jennings Bryan] recognized that what Darwin proposed on the biological level, when applied on the societal level, might legitimize an ideology that supports the survival of the fittest, with all of its dire complications. Byran was able to envision the kind of society that Social Darwinism would create- the kind of exploitation that comes from unbridled capitalism, for instance- and chose to war against it.”
― Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

“One of the main reasons I remain a Christian is because I love knowing that my sins are not only forgiven, but also forgotten!”
― Tony Campolo, Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son – An Intimate Dual Memoir of Faith, Family, and Healing

“Francis of Assisi once said, “We should preach the gospel all day long—and if necessary, use words!”
― Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People

“I sometimes wonder how people like Bart, who no longer believe in the grace of God, handle their guilt. Perhaps, as Sigmund Freud suggested, they repress it by burying the memories of past sins deep within themselves. But Freud went on to explain that such repression doesn’t really work in the long run, and that guilt always emerges from the subconscious, sometimes as phobias and sometimes as neurotic behavior.”
― Tony Campolo, Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son – An Intimate Dual Memoir of Faith, Family, and Healing

“Some people think the theists get off easy by offering eternal life, but in my experience it is awfully difficult to reconcile the death of a child with the idea of a loving God. As a Christian, I knew what to say, but I don’t think my words made much of a difference. What mattered most was just being there and sharing the hurt.”
― Tony Campolo, Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son – An Intimate Dual Memoir of Faith, Family, and Healing

“I have found that there are two conditions that prevent me from experiencing this life as my theology dictates. The first is guilt, and the second is anxiety. Guilt keeps me oriented to the past. It focuses my attention on the things I should have done, and the things I should not have done. Guilt is a burden that saps my energy, dissipates my enthusiasm for life, and destroys my appetite for saving the fullness of each moment. Anxiety, on the other hand, orients me to the future and keeps me from enoying life in the present, because of the dread that I have about the future. Caught between guilt over the past and anxiety over the future, I have nothing left with which to address the present moment in which I find myself.”
― Tony Campolo, Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son – An Intimate Dual Memoir of Faith, Family, and Healing

“We are told in Scripture that our work is approved by God when we correctly handle knowledge and truth (see 2 Tim. 2:15). We are required to have a reason for the hope that lies within us (see 1 Pet. 3:15). Blind patriotism is not a virtue.”
― Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

“achieved by the Roman”
― Tony Campolo, It's Friday but Sunday's Comin

“Each Christian must work out his or her own “salvation” on political issues (see Phil 2:12), listening to what is said on all sides and then making personal decisions.”
― Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics