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Red-letter Christians

A new Christian movement is afoot. Or maybe, an old Christian movement is afoot.

It is standing up against economic injustice, standing up against war and environmental degradation, standing up against homophobia and sexism. Self-proclaimed "radicals" who abhor capital punishment and strive to eradicate teen pregnancy and drug abuse are reaching out and stepping in, becoming activists in adopted communities, workers who eschew the rampant politicking of Republicans and Democrats.

These Christians, in the Lowcountry and across the nation, embrace politics of intervention, justice and hard work.

They avoid the "wedge issues" that divide Americans: They want to wrest the evangelical mantle away from the religious right and return to the radicalism that defined Jesus Christ. For Christ, as Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, was crucified because he was considered an extremist and a threat.

"The goal is not success per se, but faithfulness," says Bill Stanfield, one of the young, local warriors.

Meet the new Evangelicals.

A new vision?

Tony Campolo is an outspoken evangelical activist and preacher from Philadelphia. He is the author of many books, including "Letters to a Young Evangelical," and is scheduled to appear at First Baptist Church in Charleston tonight and Monday morning.

Campolo worries that conservatives such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have given Evangelicals a bad name.

"The word 'evangelical' immediately sends up red flags," he said during a recent telephone interview. That's why he and many others have adopted a new label: Red-Letter Christian.

These are Evangelicals who attempt to adhere closely to the words of Christ, the red letters in the some translations of the New Testament. The emphasis is not liturgical. The emphasis is on direct action, community engagement, getting things done.

The beginning of evangelicalism was charged with radical ideas, Campolo said. Charles Grandison Finney, the controversial revivalist, denounced slavery in the early 1800s, even denying slaveholders Communion in his New York church. By the mid-1800s, Evangelicals were pushing for women's suffrage and laws prohibiting child labor.

Finney believed that salvation was achieved through faith, but that faith was demonstrated by one's commitment to work. And this is the ethos guiding the vibrant new generation of Evangelicals, Campolo said. "We are reclaiming the roots of our tradition."

But don't call him a spiritual leader. Campolo sees himself as merely a spokesman. "Martin Luther King Jr. said it well: I'm just a drum major for the Kingdom of God."

The drum major Campolo said it's a question of emphasis. It's not that faith in Christ, the words of the Apostles' Creed and the authority of Scripture are less important, but the focus has shifted.

Huge congregations singing praise music are giving way to small groups that pray to the Stations of the Cross, meditating on the suffering of Jesus, Campolo said. There's more mysticism and contemplative prayer, and less - much less - emphasis on hot-button political issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Progressive Evangelicals simply have decided to stop talking about gay marriage, he said.

"If Jesus were among us, do you think he'd be only concerned with homosexuality?" Today, young Christians are more interested in building houses with Habitat for Humanity than in picketing before abortion clinics, he said.

Campolo named three reasons for the pendulum swing.

--Materialism isn't all it was cracked up to be. Meaning is not often found among the millionaires, he said.

--Young Evangelicals increasingly distrust institutions, including ecclesiastical institutions. "They love Jesus, but they're not sure of this denominational stuff," he said. And they are particularly upset about how institutions respond to poverty and other social crises.

--Finally, they are disillusioned with how evangelicalism has become politicized, co-opted by conservatives. "When they're asked whether they're Democrats or Republicans, they will ask, 'Please name the issue,' " Campolo said.

The old school of Evangelicals tried to change the way people think and, in so doing, hoped that people would behave differently. But the new generation thinks otherwise: "No, let's change how people behave because their thinking is influenced by how they behave," Campolo said.

Two voices

"But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist for love?"

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from his 1963 "Letter From Birmingham Jail"

Bill Stanfield is an urban minister who lives and works in the Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood of North Charleston with his wife and fellow pastor, Evelyn Oliveira.

They met at the Princeton Theological Seminary and moved to the Charleston area in 2002. They joined what briefly was called the Charleston Poverty Initiative, a program sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina. Within a year, they were living in Chicora, and the poverty initiative was renamed Metanoia.

"We're just trying to be faithful to Scripture, to give a voice to those who have no voice," Stanfield said.

The couple joined St. Matthew's Baptist Church on Reynolds Avenue, where they often preach.

The nonprofit Metanoia operation has grown. It buys and rehabilitates homes, then sells them to first-time owners. This year, the organization will build its first two new homes.

Metanoia also has a Summer Freedom School, a five-week literacy program whose curriculum comes from the Children's Defense Fund. The Young Leaders Program, an after-school mentoring program, is designed to identify and nurture a new generation of community leaders, which is hard to do when poverty and crime loom over the neighborhood like a dense cloud, chasing some good people away and engulfing those who stay.

In 2005, Stanfield and Oliveira led a campaign to keep Chicora Elementary School open. "There was no voice, no advocate for the school," Stanfield said.

Their efforts paid off. For these 33-year-old Evangelicals, speaking out was itself a holy act.

St. Matthew's sponsored a float in last week's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. It was full of young candy-throwers wearing Metanoia T-shirts and waving to onlookers. Stanfield was explaining his concerns as he marched down Congress and King streets.

"Churches are being co-opted by things like market economies," he said. People rely on the "Prosperity Gospels," praying for a new car, for comfort, for happiness, "which has nothing to do with Christ."

In a "post-Christian" society, the church is beholden to society. "We use an American lens to read the Bible, not a biblical lens to read America," he said.

Yet churches are strong enough to provide leadership and affect real social change, he said. What they need is determination. Nationally, young Evangelicals are demanding more of their churches and of themselves. The movement is growing, Stanfield said. "But I'm not sure it's made it to Charleston yet."

'A tremendous hunger'

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from his 1963 "Letter From Birmingham Jail"

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and a prolific evangelical author, said it might seem strange that an Evangelical can be progressive, but skeptics had better get used to the idea. He contends that the religious right increasingly is alienating Evangelicals.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Love thy enemies. Blessed are the poor. Those are the priorities of young Evangelicals today, Wallis said. Addressing poverty is "foundational" to the work of this new Christian movement. "The burden of proof is on the conservatives to say they can be evangelical and followers of Jesus without working for the poor."

Too often, Evangelicals support a Republican agenda that grants tax cuts to the rich and encourages corporate greed, Wallis said. But when you come down to it, conservatism and evangelicalism are irreconcilable, he said.

"There's a tremendous hunger out there," he said of young Christians unhappy about the overemphasis on politicized religious issues. Now that the Democrats control Congress, they should treat new Evangelicals as an opportunity, Wallis said. "They're going to really feel the heat from the movement."

Bruce and Sarah Jayne, Isle of Palms residents and members of Circular Congregational Church, said they feel more at home in the free church movement. Like other Evangelicals, their focus is outward; their goal is spreading the Good News. Mainline churches tend to be focused inward, Bruce Jayne said. They emphasize liturgy, worship and the Eucharist and rely on hierarchical institutions. But he counts himself among those who make "a conscious decision to do things differently."

In 1979, the Southern Baptist Convention took a hard turn to the right, leaving some Baptists and Evangelicals behind, Jayne said. In 1991, the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship provided an alternative to the politically conservative Convention. The fellowship emphasizes the priesthood of the believer, evangelism and network-building among those following the commission of Christ.

Earlier this month, former Presidents Carter and Clinton announced plans for a 2008 convocation designed to show Baptists in a better light. Last April, Baptist leaders signed a covenant "to counter the often combative pronouncements of many of the nation's most prominent Baptist leaders," the Associated Baptist Press reported. The convocation is scheduled for Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2008, in Atlanta.

The Jaynes said they are glad that religious communities seem to be turning away from political issues the religious right has used to divide people or to get out the vote.

"The religious right is so sure that it's right, they don't really want to cooperate with people who disagree with them," Bruce Jayne said. "Yet the electorate tends to be more fair-minded than the religious right, (which) just wants to make people toe the line according to their beliefs," he added.

Like Stanfield, Bruce Jayne said he thinks the church has been held hostage by a culture of wealth and consumerism. "We're supposed to love people and use things, but we get it backwards - we use people and love things."

Why doesn't the state fund education properly? Bruce Jayne asked. Why doesn't it provide health care for everyone? "Because it would mean raising taxes."

Many voices

"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from his 1964 Nobel Prize acceptance speech

On King Day, the St. Matthew's float is tugged along, weighed down by dozens of smiling children. Oliveira walks alongside, singing "Let it Shine" and clapping her hands. "We started the song too low!" she says to her husband, who is waving at onlookers.

Soon the children, youth leaders and two urban ministers break into Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday," written in honor of King when Wonder was fighting for the federal government to make this day a national holiday.

The voices swell. Hands come together. Smiles widen on faces. The troupe marches ever forward.

On the back of Stanfield's Metanoia T-shirt, receding into the future, is the Swahili word "Harambe." It means, let's all get together and push.