Brad Jersak: The
government, the media, and the church tend to try to use fear to manipulate,
control, and leverage people. I believe using fear on people is an
inappropriate thing to do. I’d like to hear your comments on that.
Tony Campolo:
Well, it is inappropriate. It’s very effective though. Take the last election
in the United States. It was really won by the fact that one candidate was able
to reassure that he could provide more protection than the other candidate. Who
can alleviate our fears most effectively was the issue.
I think that the church does it as well.
I think that through the proclamation of the gospel, we talk more about the
threats that go with not accepting Christ. “You’re going to burn in hell
forever. You’re going to go through these different circumstances.” Sigmund
Freud once said, “The church is in the business of alleviating people’s fears.
But since a lot of people don’t feel fear, it becomes the task of the church to
create fear, so that they can alleviate it. The problem is,” said Freud, “that the
church does a better job of creating the fears than of alleviating them.”
That’s a very scary statement and a very serious indictment. But I think there
may be some truth to that.
I think that we have to recognize that there’s
another way to do it. And that is to inspire people with possibilities of what
can result from becoming committed to Christ, and I don’t mean just on a
personal level. I believe that when we become committed to Christ, we begin to
understand that through us, Jesus can do incredible things in this world. He
can do much through us to eliminate the agonies of our present existential
situation: hunger, war, overall poverty.
I think that Christians get so wrapped up with
those statements that there will be wars and rumours of wars, that the poor you
will have with you always, that there is an ignoring of the fact that Jesus
really calls upon us to be peace makers, to be agents of reconciliation. Paul
teaches us to be at work in the world to drive back poverty. There are over
2000 verses in Scripture that call upon those who would follow Jesus to respond
to the needs of the poor. Whenever I talk to church people, I hear them say,
“Didn’t Jesus say, ‘the poor you will have with you always’?” But I think that
is a description. That is not a call to give up responsibility. We can do much.
I don’t think we can create the perfect world, but I do believe that Jesus will
come back and join us and carry us to that kingdom. That’s what the second
coming is all about.
So it’s about time that we recognized that the
real thing that causes people to move in the right direction are visions and
dreams of what could be done as we work together under the direction of the
Holy Spirit. The Bible is quite clear as it says, “People will perish.” But
they will perish when the young no longer have their visions and the old no
longer have their dreams. Without visions and dreams, the people perish and
we’re not giving people much of a vision of what they could do. We have not
given them much of a vision of what we can achieve. Instead, we have operated
on the basis of fear. If you don’t do this, you are going to be punished. So we
need to change our modus operandi if we’re going to be biblical, if we’re going
to be in accord with what Jesus calls us to be: people who declare good news. And fear is not good news;
it’s bad news. Good news.
BJ: I
have a premise, and that is that behind fear, there is always a lie. Would you
comment on that?
TC: I’m
not sure that I would concur with that. There are some things that we ought to
be afraid of.
I believe in the evil one. And I believe in the
power of the demonic. And if Michael the archangel trembled before Satan, and
said, “The Lord rebuke thee,” I don’t think that it’s too far off base for a
guy like me to say there is a Satanic force out there that is very, very
threatening. I live under the assurance that greater is He that is in me than
he who is in the world. But the reality is that there is an evil force.
Second, I would be less than honest to say that
I do not have some anxieties about dying. I don’t know that I’m afraid of going
to hell anymore. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that’s not in the offing.
I am afraid of dying for a variety of other reasons. First of all, I am
wondering whether I have done what I should have done. Paul says, “I have run
the race. I have completed the task.” I am not sure that I am ready to say
that. I wonder whether I’ve blown it in many respects as a follower of Christ
and whether I need more time. I’m afraid of dying because there are people that
I know and love that I need to witness to in a greater way than I have. I
haven’t been the witness that I ought to be. There are a lot of things that
have been left undone. As one Rabbi said, “On judgment day, we will not so much
be judged for all the evil that we did as we will be judged for all the good we
could have done and did not do.” So I am afraid of losing out on the
opportunities that this life has afforded me.
I’m afraid of the process of dying. I’m kind of
like Woody Allen, who says, “I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to be there
when it happens.” Whenever I hear about someone dying in their sleep, I think,
“Yeah, that’s the way I want to go.”
I had a stroke two years ago. And the doctor
said, “You know, I notice that you don’t seem to be threatened by all this.” I
said, “No, I’m not.” He said, “Your problem is that you think you’re going to
just keel over on the rostrum while you are lecturing at Harvard. And the
headlines will read, “Campolo dies lecturing at Harvard!” That’s not what is
going to happen. You are going to be in a wheelchair, drooling out of the side
of your mouth. Your wife is going to control your every movement for the next
five years, and that’s the way you’re going to die.” I am afraid of that. To say
that thought doesn’t occur to me when I am very prone to a stroke—to say that I
don’t have any fears—NO. A stroke could hit me and I could be in that
condition. The doctor says, “You had better watch it, because that’s where you
could be.” So that becomes another factor.
BJ: A
final question, but you alluded to it already: the idea that a solution to a
lot of our fears is to have an encounter with the living Christ…
TC:
Yes. A lot of encounters with Christ alleviate fears. But I mentioned the
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew today. “I was hungry—did you feed me? I was
naked—did you clothe me? I was sick—did you care for me?” I am sure that Christ
will forgive, because I believe in salvation by grace. But I am afraid of the
judgment day, when I have to face up to the things that I have failed to do.
I wish that every encounter with Christ
could be free of fear. The Christ who loves me, I know, will forgive me, by his
grace. And He will not condemn me. I am not afraid of being condemned by Jesus.
I am afraid of having disappointed Him. There’s the big word for me: that I
will have disappointed Him. “Enter ye into the kingdom, Tony, because on the
Cross, I took away your sin. But I had really hoped you would have done
better.”
Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted with Dr. Campolo on
December 4, 2004 in Vancouver, BC. It will appear in Brad Jersak’s
upcoming book "Fear No Evil: Overcoming the Culture of Fear"
(Abbotsford: Fresh Wind Press, 2005).