Choosing a God. Can you do that?
Wow! Read this and tell me your jaw doesn’t drop. Written by Tony Campolo’s son, Bart, in Youth Specialties “the Journal of Youth Ministries”. It has now been pulled.
Some might say I would be wise to swallow my misgivings about such stuff [like God's sovereignty, wrath, hell, etc.], remain orthodox, and thereby secure my place with God in eternity. But that is precisely my point: If those things are true, then God might as well send me to Hell. For better or worse, I simply am not interested in any God but a completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving One who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil. Such a God may not exist, but I will die seeking such a God, and I will pledge my allegiance to no other possibility because, quite frankly, anything less is not worthy of my worship.
Please, don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that I don’t get to decide who God is. What I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegiance. I am a free agent, after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this: I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am.
What absolute arrogance, but strange honesty. It’s almost the perfect description of sin. Even the demons know he’s God, they just refuse to worship him.
The Evangelical Outpost and Blogotional both have some extensive things to say about it.
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Comments
Found the full article…
http://www.thejournalofstudentministries.com/articles/CampoloYS.pdf
I still do my best to convince young people to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, but not because I’m afraid God will damn them to Hell if they don’t. On the contrary, I want the kids I love to follow Jesus because I genuinely believe following Jesus is the best kind of life.
Eternity aside, I want them to be transformed by the
Gospel right here and right now, for their sakes and for
the sakes of all the lost and broken people out there who need them to start living as Jesus’ disciples.
Thats something I can get behind
Yeah, I understand the point he is trying to make…he just says a few things that seem like we are the important ones/in control, which while God is loving and very, very good – “good” may not mean the same thing to us as to God. I think we have to be careful comparing ourselves to God i.e. when he talks about only believing in a God that is as compassionate as himself (oh how our compassion can fall short) because our sense of good and loving in no way compares to God’s good and loving! Like when C.S. Lewis wrote in one of the Chronicles of Narnia books that the lion Asylan isn’t safe, but he’s good. I picture God not necessarily as “tame”, but as undeniably good, as defined by Him. He’s also incredibly loving, just look at Jesus. God is a mystery.
P.S. I think God would want people/kids to respond to him out of love, not merely because it saves them from hell. (I can get behind that too). Why would God bend over backwards to prove himself loving through Jesus just to scare folks away from a fiery eternity?!
not because I’m afraid God will damn them to Hell if they don’t. On the contrary, I want the kids I love to follow Jesus because I genuinely believe following Jesus is the best kind of life.
Ok, it doesn\’t matter why we \”want\” kids to follow Jesus. Some will follow because of the love, some will follow because of the logic, & some will follow out of fear. There are many reasons people are drawn to Christ. Everyone\’s different. Yes, I want kids to follow Christ because of the incredible life he offers, but it also scares me to think that some of my high school friends will end up in hell. And, it should scare them, too. Isn\’t that why we do a sin talk, so they can see the reality of it.
While context normally matters, I don\’t see how him saying that if hell & wrath are true (in any context) he wants God to send him to hell is anything but… well stupid. Jesus talked about hell for crying out loud. To deny hell is well…stupid.
It doesn\’t matter if we want to only see the loving, caring side of God and consider that good. The truth is that there is a hell, there is wrath, and like it or not, God\’s wrath, since it is his is also good. We can\’t just choose to not believe in him because we can\’t get past what we \”want\” God to be.
John Calvin—or Jerry Falwell for that matter—may well be right after all, but if they are I would rather cling to my glorious hope than accept their bitter truth just to save my own skin.
Heck, God is not fully in control of me yet, even when I want God to be…
I think these are the statements that are most off base, first of all if he thinks he can save his own skin at all he is mistaken, and HIS glorious hope is nothing compared to the hope that is in the Lord. He has lost perspective on who is the one in charge.
I am not agreeing with him – God can choose any means possible to draw us to himself (whether that be fear, love, etc.) But, I do understand him caring deeply about the suffering in his friends and feeling passionate about them being loved (I mean didn’t Paul say he would cut himself off from Christ for his people? Rom 9). Though his logic is faulty, his question, how can God be good if people can be eteranally damned, is a question every Christian has to live in the tension of. To not ask and explore the question is in it’s own way naive.
His conclusion that he will decide or not decide to follow God based on his attributes is way off base, for we follow God because he says we should, but his question & discussion is honest.
**His conclusion that he will decide or not decide to follow God based on his attributes is way off base, for we follow God because he says we should, but his question & discussion is honest.**
I definetly agree that the question and discussion is incredibly honest, I gotta give him props for being so honest.
I’m not sure I’m following what you mean by off base though. In one of the forums I hang out on, there’s a couple of people whose biblical knowledge totally shames me. One of them even studied hebrew, and is now fluent in it, and greek so she could study the text in the original language. She, and many other people I know who know alot of stuff about god, decide to not follow him based not only on his attributes, but what they see when they look around at the world. It takes an encounter with God, whatever that looks like for that person, to decide to follow or not.
I also question if he has stopped “following” God. He doesn’t believe all the things that are considered orthodox, but from what I’ve read in the article he seems to still be very much following God. While his beliefs are without a doubt questionable, I fully believe that following God is an action, seperate from beliefs. If we all have to have it completely figured out, then we’re all screwed. Thank God for grace.
I fully believe that following God is an action, seperate from beliefs. If we all have to have it completely figured out, then we’re all screwed. Thank God for grace.
I’m not sure I agree that in following God, you can separate action from beliefs. I like to tell my kids that believing in God is like believing in gravity. Like it or not, gravity is there. Me believing in it or not doesn’t change that fact. I can choose to deny it, but if my actions are not in line with my belief, I might die. It’s in my belief or acknowledgement of gravity that my actions are played out. In fact, whether I conciously think about it, most decisions I make has the idea that I believe in gravity somewhere in it. Am I going to sit or stand? Am I going to pour that glass of water? Am I going to ride that roller coaster?
Jesus said that whoever “believes” in him (the son) would have eternal life. It wasn’t physically following Jesus that gave the disciples life. Just look at Judas. It was believing he was who he said he was.
People can follow Jesus as a teacher and never believe he is their savior, and still be condemned.
I’m not saying action is not important. Jesus was disgusted by the pharisees who believed in God, but their actions did not follow their beliefs. So, I think the two work hand in hand and are in fact not able to be separated.
Campolo is attempting to do so, and by writing that, leading others to believe that it’s ok to not “pledge allegiance” to the real God, just because in their finite minds they can’t comprehend how a bad things can happen in the world if God is good.
I agree that generally (and ideally) actions and beliefs go hand in hand, but thats not always the case, espically when it comes to God. Theres plenty of people out there that believe in God, but don’t have the accompanying actions.
*Campolo is attempting to do so*
Is this referring back to following Jesus as teacher but not savior? I didn’t get that feel from the article, but its been a few days since I’ve read it, once I get acrobat back up and running, I’ll have to reread it. Any part specifically where you feel he’s advocating that?
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wonder what the rest of it said. I doubt a Campolo would write an article so short, which starts in such an akward way.