Campolo, pro & con.

• Author: Doerr, Edd
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the Editor

John Oliver Mason's piece on Tony Campolo was refreshing ("Meet Evangelist Tony Campolo," August issue). Since evangelicals like Campolo and Jim Wallis share a great many social justice values--except, perhaps, on reproductive rights--with liberal and progressive Catholics, mainstream Protestants, Jews, humanists, secularists, and others, we all need to work more closely together to roll back the advances of rapacious secular conservatives and narrow-minded intolerant fundamentalists.

Edd Doerr

President

Americans for Religious Liberty

Silver Spring, Maryland

Thank you for your profile of Tony Campolo. I find it very encouraging to see The Progressive treat him at length and placing him among Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action and Jim Wallis of Sojourners. A subscriber for three years, I have often enjoyed The Progressive's independent coverage of important events and movements. However, I have sometimes been quite put off by the tendency, common to the secular left, to ridicule or dismiss evangelical Christianity as monolithic and reactionary across all issues.

After thirty years (and counting) of struggles with my fellow evangelicals over theology, politics, and simple courtesy to others, I know as well as anyone how utterly reactionary and even unchristian some of us can be. However, if the editors broaden their vision they are likely to find folks who follow Campolo, Sider, and Wallis in any urban area...