BART CAMPOLO, PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS, A SLIPPERY SLOPE, AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

Bart Campolo, Tony Campolo’s son, had rejected the Christian faith and currently works as a Humanist (atheist) Chaplain. Campolo explains that his loss of faith was due to the fact that his prayers weren’t being answered. He explains it that way:

·       “Because once you start adjusting your theology to match up to the reality you see in front of you, it’s an infinite [steady] progression [to atheism]. So over the course of the next 30 years…my ability to believe in a supernatural narrative or a God who intervenes and does anything died a death of a thousand unanswered prayers”.

·       “I passed through every stage of heresy. It starts out with sovereignty goes, then biblical authority goes, then I’m a universalist, now I’m marrying gay people. Pretty soon I don’t actually believe Jesus actually rose from the dead in a bodily way.” https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Bart-Campolo-says-progressive-Christians-turn-into-atheists.-Maybe-he-s-right

Campolo claimed that his reality didn’t match his expectations for answered prayers. He termed this disappointment “as the beginning of the end.”

However, many of us experience similar disappointments. How then did Campolo become an atheist, when others did not? He chose to see through the lens of his human eyes and not the lens of patience and faith. Consequently, when this results-demanding criterion is applied consistently, it is a slippery slope, eventually resulting in the denial that Jesus rose from the dead. Why? Well, if we haven’t seen results like anyone rise from the dead, why then should we believe that Jesus rose from the dead! Consequently, Campolo predicted that 30-40% of all “Progressive Christians” will also become atheists

However, I cannot judge Campolo. My story had been similar. I was trying to follow Christ the best I could. However, I became overwhelmed with depression and panic attacks, and God refused to answer my prayers for deliverance. I couldn’t understand why He was allowing me to suffer so. He promised me His comfort, but it seemed that everyone else experienced more comfort than I. He promised to love me, but I felt totally unloved, unlovable, and utterly rejected. He promised that He would never leave me, but I felt entirely abandoned. From my perspective, the Christian life was a huge fraud.

If I had a viable alternative, I would have jumped-ship, but I didn’t have one. I had already tried out every promising option, and each had all failed me. Either God would somehow come through, or I was finished.

His silence convinced me of either of two things. Either I was so worthless that God wouldn’t waste His time with me, or God didn’t exist, and everything that I had experienced of God was just a matter of self-deception.

However, since I had nowhere else to turn, I began to read the Psalms and found that the Psalmists had the same problems. This provided some comfort, but I was confronted with a powerful doubt at the onset. Were the Psalms truly inspired and “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), as were the rest of the Scriptures. They represented such overflowing expressions of human feelings. How could they possible be the Word of God?

However, Jesus clearly regarded the Psalms on equal footing with the rest of the Scriptures. After His resurrection, He appeared to His disciples who had been in hiding:

·       Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:44-45)

Through many of Jesus’ quotations from the Psalms, He showed that He regarded them as Scripture:

·       Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” (Matthew 21:42 quoting Psalm 118)

After this, Jesus asked the Pharisees a rhetorical question about a Psalm that they regarded as Messianic to demonstrate the pre-existence of the Messiah:

·       “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’?” (Matthew 22:42-44 quoting Psalm 110)

We also have the consistent testimony of the NT that the Apostles regarded the Psalms, perhaps the most quoted Book in the Bible, as inspired. I concluded that our Lord was able to weave the Psalmists’ outpourings of grief into a wholly Divine fabric.

I was now ready to take the Psalms seriously. I noticed that David had complained:

·       How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:1-2)

This Psalm made me think - David had been the man “after God’s own heart,” and yet he suffered such torment. His God had promised David that He would never leave him, and that He would establish an everlasting kingdom through his descendent. How then could David feel so forsaken? Clearly, he had been praying to God, but God didn’t seem to be answering him, and it wasn’t because He had rejected David. Perhaps He hadn’t rejected me?

Many of the Psalmists also complained that their suffering didn’t match up with their glowing expectations based on God’s promises. This was also true for His Chosen People, the Nation of Israel.  The Psalmist Ethan reviewed God’s glorious promises to King David:

·       “I [God] will maintain my love to him [David] forever, and my covenant with him will never fail…I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered…that his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun; it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky." (Psalm 89:28-37)

However, by the next verse, Ethan’s tone dramatically changed. Now, he began to accuse God of unfaithfulness:

·       But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one. You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken through all his walls and reduced his strongholds to ruins…O Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David? (Psalm 89:38-40)

According to Ethan, God had betrayed His people and had reneged on His promises. Israel’s present degraded status failed to measure up to what their God had promised them. Ethan seemed to be rejecting the faith of his Father’s. Reality didn’t match to God’s promises and Ethan’s expectations or with Campolo’s.

I was drawn into this perplexing drama. It seemed that I wasn’t alone. The Psalmists also felt betrayed by their God, who had failed to live up to His promises.

The Psalmist Asaph had also felt betrayed by God. It was apparent to him that the arrogant enemies of God were living far better than the righteous. He therefore complained:

·       Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. (Psalm 73:13) 

According to Asaph, it had been a disappointment to serve God. However, these Psalmists had been the exemplars of the faith, and they were concluding that their faith had been a waste of time, just like Campolo.

Even the Messiah claimed that His Father had abandoned Him:

·       Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

However, we know that this abandonment had only been temporary. By the end of the Psalm, He proclaimed that this “abandonment” had not been the end of the story:

·       For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. (Psalm 22:24)

Was there a lesson here for me? Perhaps I too had failed to see the big picture. Perhaps I was suffering from myopia. Did the Psalmist Ethan resolve His conflict with God? He simply concluded:

·       Praise be to the LORD forever! Amen and Amen. (Psalm 89:52)

It doesn’t seem that Ethan was able to see the big picture – that God would once again exalt His nation and show Himself faithful to His Covenant, His promises to David. However, it does seem that he was willing to wait. However, Campolo perceived a “viable” alternative to waiting. He was able to transition into an atheistic chaplain, but fortunately, I perceived no other way of escape but to wait.

Perhaps there was more to my suffering than what I was able to see. Perhaps my Savior had secretly been loving me in the midst of my tears, and even suffering along with me (Hebrews 4:15).

However, the Psalmist Asaph was subsequently blessed with a revelation. He entered the Temple and was shown the big picture. He perceived that the prospering of the arrogant and the suffering of the righteous were only temporary. After this revelation, he gratefully proclaimed:

·       I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:22-26)

Asaph had not been able to contemplate any possible resolution for his conflict. The arrogant were prospering and the righteous were suffering. However, he had been shown otherwise. He had been enabled to see beyond his limited experiences and observations.

Perhaps also there was something that I was missing - a purpose for my suffering as there had been for Asaph’s. Perhaps I was demanding too much – an immediate understanding about what I was suffering.

Perhaps Campolo had been expecting too much and too soon instead of walking by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

Why do some persevere and continue to look towards God, even in their perplexity, while others leave? Meanwhile, I thank God for what I had suffered. I liken myself to the Psalmist David who confessed:

·       It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. (Psalm 119:71-72)

We struggle with many disappointments, and are baffled that our present situation is at such odds with the divinely promised joy and victory over sin. The Psalms take us by the hand and guide us over what seems to be the impassable chasm between our present disappointments and the promises of God. They open our eyes to the big picture, the picture that had ultimately restored the Psalmists to the praise of their God.