Source: Baptist News Global | Bob Allen
A Southern Baptist leader expressed sadness but not surprise at Tony Campolo’s announcement June 8 that he supports full inclusion of gays and lesbians into the life of the church.
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said in a podcast June 9 that given the trajectory of Campolo’s thinking across the years, the surprise is not the conclusion he reached but that it took him so long. The difference between his new statement and previous views, Mohler said, is the lack of “any serious engagement” with the Bible.
Mohler cited articles from 1999 where Campolo said he believes Paul’s writing in the first chapter of Romans rules out moral acceptance of same-sex eroticism.
“I believe that the Bible does not allow for same-gender sexual intercourse or marriage,” Campolo said in Sojourners Magazine in May 1999.
“We can argue over this interpretation or that interpretation, but we must take the church very seriously,” Campolo said. “The fellowship of believers called the church of Jesus Christ has stood from the time of Christ to the present day, and I believe it speaks with authority. For almost 2,000 years, the church has read Romans 1 in a particular way. People who knew the Apostle Paul personally have written about what Paul meant when he wrote those verses.”