The Prescience of Tony Campolo: He Warned Us

The Prescience of Tony Campolo: He Warned Us

The year was 1985. The “Reagan Era” was in full swing. Conservative Christians were shouting Reagan’s praises. In the midst of the noise evangelical writer and speaker Tony Campolo (d. 2024) wrote a chapter that warned about the future.

The book was strangely titled: We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Partly Right. The book is about secular thinkers often labeled “the enemy” by conservative Christians in America and how they can learn from them. (I recognized that the book was partly a rip-off (even if not intentionally) of an earlier book written by Tony’s theological mentor Bernard Ramm. That one was badly titled The Devil, Seven Wormwoods, and God.)

Chapter 2 is Hegel: The Pope of the Middle Class. Tony did a decent job of summarizing one aspect of Hegel’s philosophy—his philosophy of history. And he broke the promise of his title by finding nothing good to say about Hegel. Hegel did believe that the Prussian State of the early-to-mid 19th century was the pinnacle of cultural history, the coming of Geist (God) to self-actualizes ion.

Then, in the last two pages of the chapter Tony warned strongly against American Christians repeating Hegel’s hybris. “Our politicians have learned that there are votes and money to insure their reelection if only they will promise to make America, once again, a Christian nation.” (62) Then, “If we are to avoid the kind of cultural religion that led Germany into fascism we must be on guard against nationalistic extremism. Let us be suspicious of religious leaders who in any way even imply the following:

1. That the American middle-class lifestyle if biblically prescribed….”

He goes on in the chapter to mention three more beliefs to be suspicious of. They are commonplace today among American conservative Christians.

It amazes me how prophetic Tony was in 1985. It’s like God pulled back the curtain to show what COULD become of America and of American Christianity. We have largely fallen into the traps Tony warned against. American Christian nationalism is a heresy—at least in its extreme forms. And many, many American Christians are falling into its extreme forms.

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