Red Letter Christians?

Normally I respect Tony Campolo and his work, but his book excerpt in The Huffington Post, "Who Are Red Letter Christians?" really got my goat. For one thing, I think there is a danger in divvying up the Bible in to More Important and Less Important. I've heard too many people say disparaging things about Paul, and dismiss his letters as something they don't really have to follow. The book of James is in contention as well. The words of Jesus while He lived on earth are of course very important, and I certainly wouldn't want to minimize them. But God says the Bible is the Living Word of God. He calls Jesus The Word. (John 1:1 -- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:14 -- "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.")." He says all scripture is relevant for teaching and exhorting. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17 - All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." ) He says it is all Truth and not to be added to or taken from. (Revelations 22:18-20, Deut. 4:2).

Putting Jesus' words in red is a man-made contrivance that can muddy the waters a bit, as can all things not directly from God. Already the gays who attend churches teach that since Jesus Himself never uttered words to the effect that homosexuality is wrong, that it must not be wrong. Anyone who wants to say Christians have no call to get involved in politics could well point to the fact that Jesus never mentions or advises that course of action. When He fed the multitudes, after all, He never began a campaign to get the government to begin feeding them. God says in John 1: 17 that the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. We must remember and teach that "what Jesus taught" is the Bible in its entirety. ALL of Jesus' teachings are valuable. And from what I can tell, we are taught to do things individually, or through churches, while praying for our elected and appointed government leaders.

We are indeed taught that visiting orphans and widows in their distress is pure religion, along with keeping ourselves unstained by the world. (James 1:27). We as Christians are exhorted to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit those in prison; we as individuals are told to do what God puts before us to do. Large lectures about all the problems in the world, and angry agreement that "other people" aren't doing their share, really don't solve much. We each must quietly do what inconveniences us personally, without fanfare or praise, usually without even the thanks of the person we helped, sometimes with persecution for our efforts. I could not get past the story about the starving Haitian children. All I could think was, "Why didn't you get up and go out and feed them?" Rather than turning this episode in your life in to a lecture about how other Christians "pull down the shades" on the needs of the world, why aren't you repenting of your own reaction? That would have made a powerful point. But saying that the government of America is not budgeting enough to help the world is disingenuous, because not only does America do far beyond what is budgeted whenever there is a crisis of any kind, but the individuals and churches that you mention do far beyond what the citizenry in those other countries mentioned do. If we agitate for the government to do more, we will simply be taxed more. This will lead to us being less able to help as individuals, and will also mean we have no say in what charitable projects are contributed to. There will also be no giving it in Jesus' name if the government is the one doing it.

As for the problems in places like Camden, they do not arise from physical poverty so much as from spiritual and family poverty. Universal health care and minimum wage reform will do little to help. The breakdown of the family, personified in such issues as gay rights and abortion, contribute more to the problems then slender paychecks do. Abortion preys on the weakest and most vulnerable, and if we won't do any thing about that, it's unlikely we'll do much to help those more able to help themselves. I do think we need to follow the words of Jesus - all of them. I do believe we are stewards of the earth, our brother's keeper, and servants to our fellow man. I even believe we need to remind each other of that when we get too comfortable inside our church buildings and begin to think it's all about us. But soapboxes just make the speaker feel self-righteous. We are the body of Christ, each with our own role to play. We should do what God calls us to do, while supporting others in what He calls them to do. That way we can better accomplish the things Jesus Christ, the Head, wants done in the world.