Are you a Red-Letter Christian? Should you be?

redletterbible.jpgIn his book Letters to a Young Evangelical, Tony Campolo introduced a new group called “Red-Letter Christians.” He says they have an “intense desire to be faithful to the words of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament” and so they elevate these words above all others in the Bible. According to Campolo, “We are people who want to assure that Jesus is neither defined as a Republican nor a Democrat. When asked about party affiliation, the Red-Letter Christian is prone to answer, ‘Please name the issue.’ ”

But in this article, Stan Guthrie sees things differently:

Campolo also says RLCs are upset about “gay-bashing, anti-feminism, anti-environmentalism, pro-war, pro-gun, and Religious Right politics.” These items sound a lot like talking points from a James Carville memo.

Further, Campolo regularly uses the highly pejorative term Religious Right for politically conservative Christians but declines a comparable label, Religious Left, for his group.

Guthrie also questions the validity of elevating any parts of Scripture above the others:

Sure, Christians understand that Jesus the incarnate Word fulfills the written Word. But if all Scripture is God-breathed, then in principle Jesus’ inscripturated statements are no more God’s Word to us than are those from Peter, Paul, and Mary—or Ezekiel.

As sinful people, all of us tend to magnify the portions of Scripture that bolster what we already believe, and ignore the parts that don’t. It’s happened forever. Like half a millennia ago, when Martin Luther called the letter of James an “epistle of straw” because it seemed too Catholic for his tastes.

Today, liberals love the Jesus of the gospels, and they’ll read every other book in the Bible through the lens of their narrow view of Jesus from specific parts of the gospels. They’ll say, “The Jesus I know from the gospels accepted everyone. So what if someone wants to get married to their labrador retriever? Jesus will still love them. It’s the narrow-minded Christian bigots who Jesus hates.”

On the other side of the spectrum, fundamentalists love the law, the epistles, and especially Revelation, and they’ll read the gospels through the lens of their favorite parts of those books. They’ll say, “The Jesus of Revelation demands holiness, so how do we have any time to help the poor and oppressed? We’ve got to get people to accept Jesus so they’ll stop smoking and drinking and cussing and getting tattoos … and maybe it’ll happen if we put the Ten Commandments on every public building.”

John Calvin observed a few centuries ago, “That is why the reading of Scripture bears fruit with such a few people today, because scarcely one in a hundred is to be found who gladly submits himself to teaching.”

Actually, most people will gladly submit themselves to teaching. As long as it reinforces the way they already live.