The Red and the Black
I guess you could say I have been a red-letter guy since I was ten years old. That’s when my mother gave me my own Bible for Christmas, a leather-bound King James Version with the words of Jesus printed in red. This printing technique drew my attention to Jesus’s words as I studied the New Testament.
As I grew in my faith, studied theology, and became a public figure, Jesus’s teaching was at the core of my faith. I always believed that I should follow Jesus’s message and method. Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5–7, became foundational for my personal devotion, my moral values, and my social activism.
Love your enemies. Blessed are the meek. Care for the poor. Turn the other cheek. The first shall be last. It does not get any more radical than this. Jesus’s teaching turns our understanding of the world upside down. At least it did for me.
Jesus said he was bringing a bold new application of Old Testament teachings. Take a look at his method in this case, when he compares his message to the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20): “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment” (Matt. 5:21–23).
Those of us who were Red Letter Christians grew concerned that many religious-right leaders, ministries, and broadcasters had forsaken both Jesus’s message and his method. How so?
Message: Jesus often talked about caring for the poor and the outcast. He never once mentioned the two cardinal issues of the religious right: abortion and homosexuality. Why, we wondered, did conservative evangelicals elevate these two issues that Jesus never mentioned above the issues that Jesus actually stressed?
Method: Other than the times when he confronted legalistic religious leaders, Jesus’s primary response to the sinners who surrounded him was love and compassion. But religious-right leaders showed anything but love to the people and groups they opposed.
We believed that Christians working in the public and political spheres should promote a more Christlike agenda: peace, building strong families, the elimination of poverty, the elimination of the death penalty, and more.
But soon after we publicly announced forming Red Letter Christians, there was a backlash in favor of the black letters of the Bible. Christianity Today critiqued us in an opinion piece by Stan Guthrie subtitled “Why I Am Not a Red-Letter Christian.”(11) The piece critiqued our founding concept: “We evangelicals believe in the plenary, or full, inspiration of Scripture, don’t we? Setting off Jesus’ sayings this way seems to imply that they are more holy than what is printed in ordinary black ink.”
I responded to the critique in a letter affirming the preeminence of Christ’s teaching for Christians, and Christianity Today printed it in the next issue:
While we, like you, have a very high view of the inspiration of Scripture and believe the Bible was divinely inspired, you are correct in accusing Red Letter Christians of giving the words of Jesus priority over all other passages of Scripture. I’m surprised you don’t agree. After all, Stan, didn’t Jesus himself make this same point in the Sermon on the Mount, when he said his teachings about marriage and divorce were to replace what Moses taught? Don’t you think his red-letter words about loving our enemies and doing good to those who hurt us represent a higher morality than the “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” kind of justice that we find in the Hebrew Testament? Is it really so hard to accept that, as God incarnate, Jesus set forth the highest law in the Bible, and therefore that law is more important than the Kosher dietary regulations we find in Leviticus and Deuteronomy?
(11) Stan Guthrie, “When Red is Blue,” Christianity Today, October 11, 2007, https://tinyurl.com/ydt9ytdw. My response follows Guthrie’s column at the same URL.
Excerpted from Pilgrim: a Theological Memoir by Tony Campolo with Steve Rabey, copyright 2025. Reprinted here with permission of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
