End Times and Current Events

Tony Campolo Comes Out of Closet in Support of ‘Full Acceptance’ of Homosexuality in Church

False teacher Tony Campolo announced on Monday that he has decided to endorse and speak out for the inclusion of open homosexuals in the Body of Christ.

“It has taken countless hours of prayer, study, conversation and emotional turmoil to bring me to the place where I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church,” he wrote in a statement posted to his website.

As previously reported, Campolo serves as one of the leaders at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, which is part of the National Baptist Convention USA and American Baptist Churches USA. In the 1990’s, he served as a spiritual adviser to then-President Bill Clinton, including during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Campolo’s wife, Peggy, is a homosexual activist and believes that the Church should be accepting of same-sex “marriage.” He explained on Monday that his wife is one of the reasons why he has decided to endorse acceptance of homosexuals in Christianity.

“Because of my open concern for social justice, in recent years I have been asked the same question over and over again: Are you ready to fully accept into the Church those gay Christian couples who have made a lifetime commitment to one another?” Campolo outlined. “One reason I am changing my position on this issue is that, through Peggy, I have come to know so many gay Christian couples whose relationships work in much the same way as our own.”

“Our friendships with these couples have helped me understand how important it is for the exclusion and disapproval of their unions by the Christian community to end,” he continued. “We in the Church should actively support such families.”

Campolo said that he also also come to the belief that homosexual temptation is not a choice.

“As a social scientist, I have concluded that sexual orientation is almost never a choice and I have seen how damaging it can be to try to ‘cure’ someone from being gay,” he explained. “As a Christian, my responsibility is not to condemn or reject gay people, but rather to love and embrace them, and to endeavor to draw them into the fellowship of the Church.”

The author and speaker said that the hymn “Just As I Am” should be considered as including “my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters” to be however they want. Although he noted that he could be wrong in his conclusion, Campolo compared the matter to the acceptance of women preachers in the Church, as well as the inclusion of those who are divorced and remarried.

“I am afraid we are making the same kind of mistake again [in our interpretation of Scripture], which is why I am speaking out,” he wrote. “I hope what I have written here will help my fellow Christians to lovingly welcome all of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters into the Church.”

As previously reported, Campolo is regarded as being a mystic as he teaches that his “intimacy with Christ was developed gradually over the years, primarily through what Catholic mystics call ‘centering prayer.’”

He asserted in his 2008 book “Partly Right” that the Bible is not without error, as “an evangelical has a very high view of Scripture though not necessarily inerrancy,” and has also commented to reporters that he believes non-Christians might go to Heaven.

“[W]e do not know who Jesus will bring into the Kingdom and who He will not,” Campolo told the Edmonton Journal in 2007. “We are very, very careful about pronouncing judgment on anybody. We leave judgment in the hands of God and we are saying Jesus is the way. We preach Jesus, but we have no way of knowing to whom the grace of God is extended.”

On April 13, in an article entitled “Why Christians Should Vote for Hillary,” Campolo called upon Christians to vote for Clinton as president. His son, Bart, is the humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California.

http://christiannews.net/2015/06/08/tony-campolo-comes-out-of-closet-in-support-of-full-acceptance-of-homosexuality-in-church/

Liberal Christian Leader Tony Campolo: 'God Is Not in Control'



A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to the Red Letter Christians, a group of liberal believers whom the New York Times breathlessly profiled recently as the face of Christians who don't worship Donald Trump. One of the group's leaders, Tony Campolo, recently gave an interview with Premier, a Christian website in the UK, in which he stated that he doesn't believe that God is in control — yet.

Campolo barely touches scripture to support his assertion when he says:

    So often we read the scriptures but don't pay attention to what is really going on. In the temptation story, for instance, Satan says to Jesus: "Here are all the kingdoms of the world, they are mine to give you". Does Jesus say: "Oh no they're not"? No, he doesn't!

    Did you know that St Paul, in five different places, announces that God is not in control?

Of course, he doesn't cite any of those specific places. He does mention a passage in Ephesians that doesn't really support his point before he goes off on a tangent about worship music.

    I have problems with a lot of the new worship music. I think it's wonderful that it's captured the music that young people can relate to and they get into it with great love and emotion. But compare 'My God reigns' with the old hymns which say: "Jesus  shall reign" - it's future tense, not present tense.

    The Hallelujah Chorus never says: "God is in control". It says: "The kingdoms of this world will (when the second coming occurs) become the kingdoms of our God and he shall reign forever and ever hallelujah".

(Of course, we use the future tense when we talk about the future. It doesn't take a grammar nerd — or a theologian — to see that lyrics or statements that address the future won't necessarily be in the present tense, even if those statements are true in the present.)

Campolo goes on to try to tie Jesus' humanity to God not being in control by referring to Jesus as being "vulnerable" and asserting that God didn't use the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to force people to believe in Him.

The whole statement from Campolo is as squishy and nonsensical as much of what stems from liberal Christianity these days. In fact, this very rejection of God's sovereignty is what led Campolo's son Bart to reject Christianity.

Campolo's statement of, um, faith, inspired a response at Premier from British pastor Graham Nicholls, who specifically addressed the issue of God's sovereignty in music:

    ...of course, there are challenges to our faith in terms of how God exercises his sovereign will in allowing the presence of sin and Satan in the world until Jesus returns.

    But we do not worship a God who is contingent, limited in both strength and knowledge. We sing of one who is transcendent and supremely powerful, and it humbles and encourages our hearts. We sing and shout that nothing stands in his way; no-one and nothing can question the authority and goodness of his actions. Our God does reign!

The Bible speaks of the all-powerful nature of a God who is definitely in control.

    Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand ( Proverbs 19:21).

    A man's steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way? (Proverbs 20:24)

    Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? (Lamentations 3:37)

In the Genesis account of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph told his brothers that their evil act was actually God's plan to save His people from famine when he said, "...you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

In fact, Jesus' humanity — his vulnerability, if you will — was a direct fulfillment of God's perfect plan to redeem those who call on His name. And Jesus' brother James reminded us that we shouldn't make plans without subjecting ourselves to God's sovereign will.

John Piper speaks of the sovereignty of God in plain terms:

    God works  all things according to his will. Here’s  Ephesians 1:11: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Let me say it again. He works all things according to the counsel of his will. I think that means he always controls everything. There’s my answer.

Jerry Bridges reminds us that our trust in God's sovereignty is a must if we are to believe in Him, especially during difficult times:

    The Scriptures teach us that we must believe that God is completely sovereign if we are to  trust Him in adversity.

    Someone has expressed it this way: “God in His love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about.”

    The sovereignty of God is asserted, either expressly or implicitly, on almost every page of the Bible.

What's the point of entrusting your life to God if you can't believe He is totally in control? Bart Campolo says that a lack of trust in God's sovereignty led him down the slippery slope in which he ceased to believe in the God of the Bible. If that doesn't shake Tony Campolo out of this odd belief that God isn't in control, nothing will. And that's a sad way to live, even as a believer.


https://pjmedia.com/faith/liberal-christian-leader-tony-campolo-god-is-not-in-control/