What is a Red Letter Christian? Here is how Tony Campolo defines it…

“Because being evangelical is usually synonymous with being Republican in the popular mind, and calling ourselves “progressive” might be taken as a value judgment by those who do share our views, we decided not to call ourselves “progressive evangelicals.” We came up with a new name: Red-Letter Christians. 

“By calling ourselves Red-Letter Christians, we are alluding to the fact that in several versions of the New Testament, the words of Jesus are printed in red. In adopting His name, we are saying that we are committed to living out the things that He said.” 

Really, is that so? Progressive (a pseudo word for liberal) Christians, who now call themselves Red Letter Christians, are committed to living out the teachings of Jesus? 

Very interesting. Apparently, this movement is dedicated to throwing out the rest of the bible. They will only abide by the words in the new testament that have been copied with red ink. Very interesting indeed. Does that mean that everything Jesus’ disciples wrote is no longer viable? Are all of the New Testament books just useless rambling by a bunch of misinformed bigots bent on singling out homosexuals as sinners and rich people as condemned heretics? 

All of that aside, what this movement really intends to do is to set out to prove that Jesus was a socialist, plain and simple. After all, Jesus fed the Five Thousand, healed the blind and leprous folks, and lived communally, and so on. 

In the ensuing articles on this subject, I will expose these ideas as being obscenely false and even blasphemous. It is dangerous to suggest that the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of His Apostles contradict each other. It is impossible to live out the teachings of Jesus and completely discount the teaching of His followers.