Submitted by admin on Tue, 2007-03-20 08:00. ::
JEFFERSON CITY - In typical Tony Campolo style, the Baptist preacher who is swapping his title of "evangelical" for "Red-Letter Christian" was unabashed and comical Monday night at Carson-Newman College.
"Evangelical," he told at least 300 people at First Baptist Church on campus, has become synonymous with the gay-bashing, _anti-environmentalist political right.
"There is a whole group of us who no longer call ourselves evangelical," said Campolo, who counseled then-President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinski scandal.
Campolo incited laughter several times while at the pulpit, even while discussing somber issues such as care for the elderly and access to medicine, which Campolo said is important to him as he ages.
"You know you're old when your wife says, 'Let's go upstairs and have sex,' and you say, 'I can't do both,' " said Campolo, who is in his 70s.
A professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania and associate pastor at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, he spoke against borrowing from China to finance the war in Iraq and "mortgaging our future to a bunch of commies."
Campolo seemed unconcerned with offending his listeners when he talked about consumerism-driven Americans and people who ignore problems in the Third World because they tithe one-tenth of their incomes.
Cody Svoboda, 19, a sophomore at Carson-Newman, was so moved that he joined dozens of others who signed up outside of the sanctuary to sponsor a child.
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