Dr. Tony Campolo began his speech last week on whether the Church is an enemy of Jesus with the George Bernard Shaw quip, "God created us in his image, and we have been returning the favor ever since."
For an academic illustration of this phenomenon, Campolo cited the work of French sociologist Emile Durkheim, who concluded from his research of Australian aboriginal tribes that people worship representatives of their collective traits and values.
"Many politically conservative evangelical Christians transformed God into a right wing, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant member of the Republican Party," Campolo said.
"Christ is not a Republican. God is not a Democrat," Campolo energetically pronounced. "I'm sorry to tell you, folks, but God is not an American," he told the capacity crowd in Filene Auditorium. But in a more serious manner, Campolo emphatically stated, "Christ should not be a nationalist entity."
Campolo, a Philadelphia pastor and Professor of Sociology, said that when his parishioners or students tell him that they have fallen away from Christ or the Church, he responds with the question, "what Christ have you rejected?"
"Most often, the Jesus whom people reject is a cultural definition with oppressive qualities. When people reject this cultural deity, they are most often right in doing so." According to Campolo, this image of Christ remains unaccommodating to minorities, women, other religious groups and homosexuals.
Throughout his speech, in which he seemed to vacillate between the conviction of a town meeting evangelist and the demeanor of a Vaudeville standup comedian, Campolo echoed sentiments expressed by innumerable Christian theologians since Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses at Wittenburg in 1516.
"Jesus is not about minute theological points. I invite you to know the Jesus that will break your heart by allowing you to see the things that break His heart," he said. His words were greeted by several exclamations of "Amen" from the crowd.
He soon switched back into joke mode, however.
Speaking of the historically oft-debated Sacrament, he said, "Catholics believe that the bread turns into the flesh of Jesus, and that the wine, through a process of transubstantiation, becomes the actual blood of Christ. I, on the other hand, am a Baptist. We believe that the bread stays bread and that the wine turns into grape juice."
Campolo was especially colorful in an anecdote of one of his past lectures at Wheaton College, which he called "one of the most evangelical schools in the nation."
Confronted with an apathetic crowd on that particular occasion, he asked, "Do you know that 35,000 children died last night while you slept? And the worst part is that you people don't give a shit."
According to Campolo, he further aroused the shocked crowd by adding, "But the worst part is that you are all more upset that I said 'shit' in chapel than that 35,000 children died last night while you slept."
He continually asserted that now is the time to make a difference, and urged the crowd, composed mostly of College students, to participate in summer and yearlong inner city volunteer programs that he runs.
"You might say, 'But it will interfere with my education.' It won't," Campolo maintained. "You want to be a doctor? If you go through this program you will come out a better doctor, lawyer, businessperson, or whatever else you want to be.
"When Jesus told the young man to sell everything he had, pick up the cross, and follow him, it wasn't simply because the poor needed help. Everybody needs the personal transformation that comes with helping people."
