How Christianity Has Changed

Hawaiian Island Ministries

8:30-9:45pm

Honolulu, HI

March 5, 2010

Dr. Tony Campolo

Hawaiian Island Ministries

8:30-9:45pm

March 5, 2010

  1. Christianity has changed since the middle of the 1800’s.
  1. Serious questions were raised about the authorship of scripture and whether or not scripture could be trusted
  1. A book called “The Fundamentals of then Christian Faith: was sent to every clergy person in the country,a defense of the traditional doctrines of Christianity over and against modernism
  1. In the early stages, fundamentalism was a very respectable, intelligent defense of the gospel.
  1. It held up the essentials of what are the core of Christianity today: High view of scripture, the writers of scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit, The Doctrines of the Apostles Creed, Jesus was raised from the dead
  1. You can believe in the Apostles Creed, have a high view of scripture, and still not be a Christian because there is one more thing that is needed; A personal relationship with Christ
  1. Fundamentalism thrived very well up until about the 1920’s and into the 1930’s, it then got bogged down
  1. Fundamentalism was then turned into an anti-intellectualist group
  1. According to Darwin, If you believe in evolution you should believe that war is a very good thing because in war inferior people are destroyed and superior people survive
  1. War is a means of elimination the inferior species
  1. Christians became anti-intellectual and pietistic which continued up until the early 1950’s
  1. Francis Schaeffer was one of three who began to redefined things, he talked the language of the academic world
  1. Billy Graham and Carl Henry were the other two very important men. They were fed up with the word fundamentalist because it had to much of a negative connotation, so they came up with a new term, “Evangelical”
  1. Of all the issues that Jesus ever deals with, there is none that he deals with more than caring for the poor
  1. What is a family?
  1. Evangelicalism became defined by being pro-life and opposed to gay marriage, suddenly, theology fell to the background
  1. Evangelicalism became defined by political issues. In the struggle, they forgot the poor, and issues of war.
  1. Jesus said “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”
  1. You overcome evil with good, you love those that would hurt you
  1. If you are going to be pro-life, shouldn’t you also say “and we are for a government that will in fact take care of the economic issues”
  1. Less than four-tenths of 10% of our federal budget is allotted to take care of the poor of the world
  1. Of the seventy industrialized nations, the United States is dead last in giving to feeding the poor of the world. Norway is number one.
  1. For every dollar the United States gives to feed the poor of the world, Norway gives twenty.
  1. George Bernard Shaw said, “God created us in His own image and we decide to repay the favor.”
  1. If you are a Christian, it is no longer “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
  1. The word evangelical has been worn out, it has been identified with the religious right, it has been identified with two political issues, we need a better agenda than that, so they came up with the name “Red Letter Christian”
  1. A Red Letter Christian is a Christian who takes the red letters of scripture seriously, who takes the words of Jesus seriously
  1. Gandhi once said the everyone knows what Jesus taught except Christians
  1. The Schofield Reference Bible suggested that before Jesus returns, the Jews will have to return to the Holy Land
  1. Evangelicals have become so committed to getting the Jews back to Israel that they have forgotten that our God is a God of Israel
  1. A democracy is not where the majority rules, a democracy is where it is okay to be in the minority
  1. Our God is a God of justice
  1. Q: Should we allow the government to legitimate gay marriage? A: No
  1. Q: Should the government legitimate heterosexual marriages? A: No
  1. The government needs to get out of the marrying business. It is the church’s responsibility to marry people. Marriage is a scared institution, what right does the government have messing around with a scared institution?
  1. The government has one responsibility and that is to assure that all people are treated equally under the law
  1. Karl Barth said that every morning a Christian should have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, asking not only what does the Bible say about my personal life, but what does the Bible say about what’s happening in the world
  1. We are called upon to struggle with the principalities and the powers and the rulers of this age, we are called upon to speak to them with authority and we don’t have authority unless we live out sacrificial love
  1. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.”
  1. Modernism said that in the end, we will accept noting as true unless it can be proven scientifically
  1. Post Modernism means that maybe science doesn’t have all of the answers that we thought it had
  1. Story about the mother who bought her crippled child to Tony Campolo to pray for healing for her son
  1. Maybe God is grater than your world view, maybe God is able to do exceedingly more than you could ever think; that is Post Modernism. Post Modernism says that science doesn’t have all of the answers

Tags: Fundamentals of the Christian Faith, modernism, Christianity, Apostles Creed, Darwin, evolution, creation, war, Francis Schaeffer, Billy Graham, Carl Henry, Evangelical, Proposition 8, gays, lesbians, family, pro-life, gay marriage, poor, war, mercy, United States, Norway, George Bernard Shaw, Red Letter Christian, Gandhi, Schofield Reference Bible, Jews, Holy Land, democracy, Democrat, Republican, justice, homosexual, heterosexual, government, marriage, Karl Barth, Modernism, Post Modernism, healing, prayer