My parents are in town this week. This is good. Very good: Free baby sitting.
Becky and I sent my mom, dad and the three little people to a hotel down the street a couple nights ago. It has an indoor swimming pool, cable TV, and a snack machine full of MSG and partially hydrogenated goodness. Kid heaven.
Becky and I went on a date, slept in without nightmares to console kids through or coughs to wake us. It was a great break. A break from the internet and anything work related too. We saw a movie. We ate out for two days straight. We sat in a book store and read. We putted around town at our own pace without a plan or a care.
The one thing I felt I had to do, and Becky wanted me to do, was see Tony Campolo while he was in town at Belmont University yesterday. Remember how I asked here on the blog for an invitation to the invitation only question and answer time? Well, I got one. My former manager and friend, Glenda and my brother-in-law and friend Brian pulled some strings and got me in. Thanks for that.
Not just in. I sat at Tony’s table for the lunch portion of the session. Our table was made up of one student, a bunch of business school professors and me. In fact the entire room was full of business school profs and only a handful pastors. Me = sore thumb.
I introduced myself to one profs as a new member of the business faculty. I told him I just hadn’t gotten around to getting a suit or the requisite haircut yet but I planned to in the next day or so. The prof didn’t get the joke. Tony and I did. We talked from then on about various musicians we both know, festivals we’ve been to. Stuff musicians, not sociologists, talk about. The subject of Bono came up and he told a few stories about his work with the Irish rock star, figuring out how best to bring the AIDS message to evangelicals in America who may or may not know or like Bono and U2. Interesting stuff. To me anyway. There was a lot I wanted to ask him about – stuff I came to learn – but I know what it’s like to spend a week on the road and just want a break from heavy conversation so I gave it to him.
Eventually, the seventy year-old Campolo put down his fork and stood at the front of the room to field questions from everyone in attendance. Well, he took three questions. Each answer he offered was meandering, detailed, full of story, containing just enough bite to keep us awake and very very long. Three questions in two hours. Not even I talk that much. And I’m not even sure that the questions were answered actually. It was more like listening to a grandfather tell war stories.
Here’s a taste. My computer ran out of memory half way through this clip so I apologize. The question was something like “How can a university like Belmont incorporate social justice and all the ideas you’ve espoused here on campus this week into what it does? What does a social justice minded school look like?”
And off he went. The audio starts about five minutes into his answer. More from all this later. Gotta go catch up on all the work I missed.
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For my part, I owe a lot to Tony. His stories are stuck in my head, and I’m still moved by a passion he helped impart to me.
So I now wish he weren’t so sure that his political beliefs were God’s own political beliefs. I wish he didn’t label a believer “heartless” toward the poor if they don’t find his particularly view of taxation compelling.
I wish he didn’t stress politics to the exclusion of a better, more subversive, far more interesting, far more dangerous, far more liberating message.
Of course, I wish he agreed with me on abortion and the importance of a coherent definition of marriage, but I understand and welcome genuine, thoughtful disagreement. The problem is that, to him, I’m homophobic, with no evidence other than that I disagree with him.
Tony’s “above” party politics, but agrees with the Democratic party on…well, pretty much everything.
Tony prompted me to launch missions efforts and even to switch majors (into sociology) and want to be a Democrat. Now, frankly, he makes me want to be a Republican. But I can resist.
I still like him. I just wish he hadn’t sold out to a party, and wish he didn’t equate his platform with God’s, since he reacts so very strongly against the Christian right for doing the same.
yeah, Brant is heading where I’ve always felt about Tony… He has moved and motivated so many Christians to get off of their “pews.”
Sadly, so many of us get distracted by the good of fighting for social causes that we can forget that works are the result of a solidly grounded faith, not the replacement for it.
That said, I still enjoy many of the rants TC used to go off on in the most unsuspecting places…
I can’t the audio to work. I’ll come back to it on my trip this weekend and let you know when it’s fixed.
Sorry about that.
There was a lot of what Tony said that I didn’t agree with this time around but an awful lot I learned as well. I hope people are graceful enough to listen through my mistakes and hear bits of the truth. That’s what I came away with from this lunch. Tony Campolo – shock – is human. And yet a very wise man with potent truths slipped in here and there.
I’d love to hear some more thoughts on what social justice looks like on a university campus… can you post up some more thoughts or something, or send me in the direction of some one else with thoughts/notes/etc? Social justice is something I have become increasingly passionate about… in fact, somehow I have managed to end up being the facilitator/leader/whatever of the social justice stuff we do through Christian Union on campus. I find the hardest thing is getting other people in CU to give a damn about social justice and God’s heart for justice. Any ideas?