Just A Few of Tony Campolo’s Heretical Pronouncements
By Brannon S. Howse
Greg Boyd is founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and a leader in the emerging church movement. I track the beliefs and teachings of Boyd and his emerging cronies, and it appears that Boyd’s “evangelicalism” attracts a predictable mix of endorsers for his book The Myth of the Christian Nation, including Tony Campolo and Brian McClaren. Boyd has convinced far too many people that he is an evangelical.
Although he first attracted national attention by promoting “open theism” which proclaims that God does not or at least chooses not to know the future, Boyd also holds the delusion that he can be pro-abortion and pro-life at the same time. I suppose if you buy the postmodern worldview that truth is created by each individual, then black and white can be the same color, but that doesn’t alter the basic falsehood of the position.
In June 2005, as a guest on Todd Friel’s radio program, Boyd offered a rationalization of his views on abortion that so upset some of his congregation members, he later wrote a paper to defend his position. He explained:
On June 11th I was interviewed on KKMS and the host, Todd Friel, asked me about some of my personal political views….I was asked if I thought abortion should be legal….I told him I thought it would be best if second and third trimester abortions were outlawed while the decision during the first trimester was left up to the mother.
Perhaps you think I’m being too hard on such “nice” men. But Jesus himself called the hypocrites and heretics of His day some pretty harsh names: dogs, white-washed tombs, vipers. It underscores the fact that “niceness” is not a Christian virtue, despite what many Christians today want to think.
The word “nice” derives from the word “ignorant.” According to Maven’s Word of the Day:
Nice can be traced back to the Latin word nescius “ignorant” which is actually a combination of the prefix ne “no” and the word scire “know”…In other words, if you were nice, you did “not know.” You were ignorant or foolish.
Many nice people today are being deceived by other nice people such as Boyd, Wallis, McClaren, and Campolo. And there are even more nice people who lack the courage to call such deviant teachers the snakes that they are.
Tony Campolo’s heretical pronouncements include the following:
Charlie Rose, January 24, 1997, speaking in the context of a Buddhist monk’s that claimed to know Jesus Christ, Campolo said, “I am saying that there is no salvation apart from Jesus, that’s my evangelical mindset. However, I’m not convinced that Jesus only lives in Christians.”
Popular author and speaker Tony Campolo in his book, PARTLY RIGHT, says, “We affirm our DIVINITY by doing what is worthy of gods, and we affirm our humanity by taking risks only available to mortals. God has to become one of us before He could be heroic…(Robert) Schuller affirms our divinity, yet does not deny our humanity…isn’t that what the gospel is?
“We want to convince the whole human race that there is a God who established the infinite value of every person, who mystically dwells in each person....”
Boyd’s other bedfellow, Brian McClaren, has spouted similarly crazy ideas like:
"...many Hindus are willing to consider Jesus as a legitimate manifestation of the divine... many Buddhists see Jesus as one of humanity’s most enlightened people.... A shared reappraisal of Jesus’ message could provide a unique space or common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue—and it doesn’t seem an exaggeration to say that the future of our planet may depend on such dialogue. This reappraisal of Jesus’ message may be the only project capable of saving a number of religions."
"...to be truly inclusive, the kingdom must exclude exclusive people, to be truly reconciling, the kingdom must not reconcile with those who refuse reconciliation.... Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela learned what happens when you try to expand the borders of who is considered 'in'.... And if critics see you as a transgressor and criticize you for opening the doors and expanding the boundaries, you go pursuing your purpose, making it clear that the kingdom of God is open to all, except those who want to ruin it by dividing it against itself."
[T]his is one of the huge problems with the traditional understanding of hell, because if the Cross is in line with Jesus’ teaching, then I won’t say the only and I certainly won’t say ... or even the primary but a primary meaning of the Cross ... is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come like the kingdoms of this world by inflicting violence and coercing people. But that the kingdom of God comes thru suffering and willing, voluntary sacrifice right? But in an ironic way, the doctrine of hell basically says, “No, that’s not really true. At the end God gets his way thru coercion and violence and intimidation and domination just like every other kingdom does.” The Cross isn’t the center then. The Cross is almost a distraction and false advertising for God.
Boyd, Campolo, McClaren, and the neo-evangelical brigade alter the meanings of words to convince people to be pro-abortion socialists who endorse the homosexual revolution and reject absolute truth, while still sporting the veneer of evangelicalism. Worse, they’d like you to believe that true evangelicals are the cause of the problems in America, the church, and the world. They refer to them pejoratively as “fundamentalists.” These men believe they and their Emergent Church, neo-evangelical friends are the real Christians with the real answers to the world’s (very real) problems.
Copyright 2012 ©Brannon Howse. This content is for Situation Room members and is not to be duplicated in any form or uploaded to other websites without the express written permission of Brannon Howse or his legally authorized representative.
