Product Description

Named by Christianity Today as one of the most influential preachers of the last fifty years, best-selling author Tony Campolo has spent decades calling on readers and audiences around the world to live their faith through committed activism.

In Letters to a Young Evangelical, Campolo enjoins evangelicals young and old to resist the intimidating rhetoric of the Religious Right and think for themselves. With his trademark candor and wit, he offers sage advice to seekers who are trying to live their faith in a modern world that is politically polarized and predominantly secular. He is unafraid to touch on hot-button topics including abortion, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, women in the ministry, and relations between Christianity and Islam.

An activist, a visionary, and a man of deep faith, Tony Campolo offers guidance not only for young evangelicals, but also for seekers of all ages and faiths.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #996460 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Campolo offers a strong enough addition to Basic's Letters to a Young... series that even older readers will learn a thing or two. In letters to two fictional young evangelicals, Campolo endeavors to challenge and encourage young Christians in much the same way Paul did in his epistles. In keeping with this Pauline theme, Campolo addresses his letters to Timothy, but, in keeping with his strong belief that women and men are equally fit for church leadership, also addresses them to Junia, a spiritual leader to whom Paul refers in the book of Romans. As Campolo covers such topics as the religious right, fundamentalism, dispensationalism, homosexuality, abortion and Christian-Muslim relations, he admirably steers clear of telling his readers what to think. Rather, he explains his position on the issue at hand, explains the positions of his detractors and leaves his readers to decide for themselves. Campolo calls himself a "Red Letter Christian," which signifies identification with neither the Right nor the Left, but with Jesus, whose words are rendered in red letters in many editions of the Bible. For Campolo, Red Letter Christianity is about following the radical teachings of Jesus, particularly identification with the poor, compassion for the suffering and the courage to stand against injustice. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The Art of Mentoring series entry addressing Reformation-based Christians calls them not Protestant but Evangelical. Evangelicalism's enthusiastic worship and personal "witnessing" have spurred monumental demographic shifts to independent, nondenominational megachurches and Evangelical subsets of mainstream Protestant denominations. Baptist Campolo, white member of a lively African American congregation, thinks that this, and the Pentecostal explosion that fueled it, are, by and large, very good. As a political liberal, however, he warns against accepting such things as the rapture, rigid end-times theology, biblical literalism, intolerance of gays, and membership in the Republican Party as Evangelical sine qua nons. Further, he counsels tenderness and mercy rather than stridency in dealing with abortion. Christianity is not partisan, he says, and to escape partisan associations, Evangelical may have to yield to a term more indicative of following Christ; he suggests red-letter Christian, which refers to the practice in many editions of the Bible of printing Jesus' words in red. Consider yourself called by Christ, he concludes, to a life of loving and faithful sacrifice and fellowship. Salvific advice, indeed. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Tony Campolo is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University in St. David's, Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. from Temple University and previously served for ten years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE), which nurtures and supports programs for "at-risk" children in cities across the United States and Canada. An ordained minister, Campolo lives with his wife Peggy in St. David's, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Not an Evangelical? This book may be for you anyway....
I was drawn to order this book when I heard Campolo interviewed on NPR.
My own beliefs tend heavily toward the liberal side of the scale so I surprised how interested I was in what Campolo had to say during the interview. Clearly, what he was saying often was not what I expected to hear from an Evangelical. So I purchased the book to learn more about him and I recommend the book for others, like me, who aren't satisfied to just sit with their assumptions and are open to learning about the common ground we can share with folks whose beliefs we may not understand as well as we thought we did.

Campolo is right on!
I purchased this book after I heard Dr. Campolo speak at a local university. This is the most influential book I've read since graduate school. Campolo does a superb job of pointing out how the world views evangelicals and all the baggage that comes with the term. He proposes to the reader to replace the term evangelical with the term "red-letter Christian" as a way to help Christians define themselves instead of being at the mercy of the media and the general consensus of the public. Campolo tackles hot-button issues with much precision and thoughtfulness. He is truly a prophetic voice in our world today. I've given away several copies already!

Too negative
Tony Campolo's writing is directed toward a fictional couple here,but is basically just a smoke screen for a diatribe against conservatives and people that don't think like he does.The division he creates by labeling and re-labeling believers into groups and subgroups becomes tiring over the course of this writing.The us against them mentality and Campolo's smugness is pervasive from the first page to the last and I had a hard time with much of Campolo's stereotyping of the labeled groups. Some of his criticism concerning doctrinal error of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals is well deserved and on the mark, but often it misses. Many of the points he makes are a stretch at best as he goes "around his elbow to get to his thumb" to try to get there-It shouldn't be that hard.In my opinion some of Campolo's scripture interpretation is loose and a product of controversy for controversies sake. I get the impression that Campolo is not one to shy away from a controversy, but actually relishes the idea of being a pot stirrer. My biggest problem with this product was the negativity, finger pointing and what not to believe thoughtlines and not enough scriptural and Godly instruction.