Thoughts on Tony & Truth

This past Tuesday the Orangewood staff chose to forego our normal staff meeting and instead go and listen to Tony Campolo out at RTS.  Campolo was doing 4 lectures over two days.  The one we attended dealt with the topic of postmodernity and the church.  Before I give you some of my thoughts, let me preface my statements.  I have heard Campolo speak on several occasions (both at Wheaton and the National Youth Worker's Convention) and to be perfectly honest I have always been annoyed each time.  I always felt it was the same message about social justice, coupled with the same tactic of making me feel guilty for my white-suburbanness.  Therefore, when Tuesday rolled around I had some fairly low expectations.  It's not that I disagree with Campolo's "usual" message--how can we ignore the poor and marginalized?  We can't.  It's just that I wasn't a big fan of how he went about conveying that message.  Do people really hear him and think critically about what he is saying or are they more impressed with his charismatic presence?  Who knows.  Which leads to my utter surprise on Tuesday morning...I lreally enjoyed listening to him!  I was really impressed.  Maybe it was because it wasn't the same old Campolo beating his proverbial drum against suburbia.  It's not that I agreed with everything he had to say, but I left with a far more open mind towards him.  Of all the things he commented on, the thing that has stuck with me was his articulation of the modern approach to Scripture and Truth.  In the modern era, Truth was something to be dissected and broken down into manageable, propositional statements about God.  Systematics was king.  He called people to understand Truth as Jesus and that to understand the Truth is to live in harmony with Jesus.  To have His heartbeat.  From this paradigm, Campolo's calls to social justice make much more sense.  It's not about guilt.  It's about living in rhythm with Jesus.  It's about our hearts breaking for our cities the way Jesus wept over Jerusalem. 

Anyway there's my thoughts.  Nothing hugely revelatory, but I did enjoy it nonetheless.  If RTS ever makes the lecture available online I will post it.