What catalysed your passion for social justice?

For me, it has never been separate from evangelical Christianity. My father was a labour union organizer and I grew up in a home focused on the politics of the poor: as a teenager, it was strange for me to suddenly find out that Christians existed who weren't concerned about social justice. I was shocked to discover there were Christians who were not committed to racial integration, who were pretty positive in their attitudes towards military conflict and who did not see anything wrong with the poor being ignored by the Government.

I was recently in America and while spending time in churches there I noticed that in a way similar to the UK, Christians are good at compassion, but we're not so good at justice. Do you see that too?

Yes I do - and I see a real differentiation between those two things. But there was a time in the 1940s and 1950s when the evangelical community really had no compassion for the poor at all. Any time you spoke about doing things for the poor, it was considered 'social gospel' and thought to be moving away from 'true gospel'. In an over-reaction to the liberal-modernist wing of the church, which had made social justice their only concern, evangelicalism went to the other extreme - saying evangelism is important and that social justice doesn't matter.

Thirty years ago, people like Jim Wallis and myself felt like lone voices out there, calling Christians to be concerned about the poor. But now that battle is over. Today, I can't find an evangelical church that doesn't understand that it should be committed to the poor, to the needy and to the oppressed. But they want to do it on a personal level.

There was a Latin American bishop called Oscar Romero who said: "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, when I begin to ask why people are poor, they call me a communist". Helping the poor seems like a really good thing, but asking, "What makes people poor?" is a political question. That's where the new battle has to be fought. Many people live in a political-economic system that denies them the possibility of escaping poverty - we can't just pick up the casualties of that system.

Martin Luther King told a wonderful story modelled on the good Samaritan, when a man travelling between Jerusalem and Jericho gets mugged. Picking him up out of the gutter and helping him is a beautiful thing. But what if somebody gets mugged there the next day, and the day after, and the day after that? At some point you have to say, "there's a problem with the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. We've got to do something to make the road safe. Maybe put in a lighting system, and put in police. "We've got to change what is going on."

The church is great at being the good Samaritan. Any church in the UK would agree that it is the responsibility of the church to help the poor. But if you ask whether they think it is their responsibility to challenge the political and economic structures that create poverty, they would say, "You're getting political now and we want to disengage." We are willing to pick up the casualties of the system, but we are not willing to change the system itself.

Do you think the church is scared to critique capitalism?

Yes it is. Years ago, we fought communism, a materialistic philosophy. The irony is that capitalism is even more materialistic. Having said that, I believe in the free enterprise system, which is different to capitalism.

Free enterprise says we want to give people the freedom to create economic ventures that will be serviceable. Christianity is democratic, in that it believes in the dignity of the individual. The individual must have the right to make decisions that determine their own destiny. People should have freedom to make economic decisions; even bad ones. But I am not a capitalist.

Capitalism is evil for two reasons. Firstly it makes no hesitation in saying that the primary motive in all you do is profit. The Bible says we should not be motivated by profits; we should be motivated by love to meet people's needs. Of course, when you start a business, you need to make a profit. But profit is not the bottom line for a Christian. The Christian has to look at ... what he or she is producing and ask whether they can say to the Lord, "I did something good for others in Your name."

Is the product of your production really a good thing? Once a year I speak in North Carolina, the capital of the cigarette industry. Ninety per cent of the members of the Baptist church there are in the cigarette industry and they say that they are tithing the money they make. But can someone tithe a profit that has been earned by creating death and call oneself a Christian?

Instead of asking "What is the maximum profit we can make?" I believe Christians have to ask, "What is a just and fair profit?"

Your new book is called Red Letter Christians; what's the significance of its title?

A lot of us are wearing wrist bands that say "Red Letter Christians" on them. I'll explain where this phrase came from. The word "evangelical" has come to be associated with anti-gay, anti-women, anti-environment, pro-war and pro-capital punishment. There is a whole group of us who have decided not to call ourselves evangelicals anymore, but call ourselves Red Letter Christians. It's a name that was given to us by a DJ in Nashville Tennessee who said to Jim Wallis in an interview, "Oh you and the other guys like Campolo and Claiborne, you people are into the red letters of the Bible." (He was referring to Bibles in which the words of Jesus are printed in red.) To that I say, "You're right, Jesus said that His commands were superior."

We also call ourselves Red Letter Christians because we contend that you can't understand the rest of the Bible until you've come to grips with Jesus. The rest of the Bible needs to be read by the eyes of one who has fallen in love with Jesus. Some people have criticised us saying "You Red Letter Christians, when you go into a voting booth, you ask questions like, 'will this candidate endeavour to save the environment? Will he establish policies for fair trade and the elimination of third world debt, and will he seek to end the war?'" I couldn't believe that this was said to us in a negative fashion. I said, "That's exactly what we think." Unlike many Christians today, I see the Sermon on the Mount as applicable to all people, of all ages, in all situations. So I am a Red Letter Christian.

Are there any stances that you feel you've changed your mind on in the past 30 years?

Oh yes. My wife reminds me that there was a time when I didn't believe that women should hold leadership roles in the church. There was also a time when I was not a pacifist, but I am now. Looking back over history, I think the church has been wrong many, many times, on many issues.

Whenever I change my own views, I always go back to the Bible and ask, "does the Bible support the change that I am about to make?" Whatever position I take must always be validated by biblical support.

There are many Christians in the UK actively engaging with politics, who don't necessarily feel at home in one particular party. For instance many of us hold what could be described as "Left-of-centre" economic views, but "right-of-centre" views on social issues. What advice would you have for these folks?

I have just been appointed to the platform committee of the Democratic party - I will be helping form the policy decisions that our party takes on social issues. I will be articulating some fairly conservative views on issues such as abortion, pornography, economics and human trafficking. These issues will be in the party's agendas. We need to get involved in politics. But here's the warning: we must speak to power, but when we think that the only way to bring about change is to hold power ourselves, we make a mistake. The Church does best when it stands up for its biblical principles with purity, and speaks to those who are in power. But understand that people with power have to compromise - politics is the art of compromise.

There is a difference between power and authority. Power is the ability to coerce, but when you speak with authority, people support your positions because they recognise the legitimacy of what you say. When the Church speaks to those in power, it should say, "This is what God requires of you." The Church needs people in politics who will carry on the struggle within the system, but God help us if we ever have enough power to impose our authority on the rest of the people. Christians should recognise that in the end we cannot impose our view of righteousness on the rest of society.

The task of the church is to be prophetic. The prophet was not the king; the prophet was the one who spoke to the king and said, "Thus sayeth the Lord". The Church must speak up on political issues. But the key is this: we must have served the needs of the poor and the oppressed well, because that will give us authority to speak. The Church needs to demonstrate a sacrificial lifestyle, offering itself to the poor and the oppressed in ways that stagger the individual.

I recently read these words in a Christian magazine. "Often there are fads and fashions in church life; one of the current moves is to fight for justice throughout the world. I wholeheartedly believe in this... However, we mustn't do this at the cost of extending God's Kingdom." What are your thoughts on this comment?

I think three things: firstly, what is the Gospel? The Gospel is the good news that Jesus came to declare to the poor. And that was sight for the blind and freedom for the captives. Secondly, we mustn't forget that Jesus prayed "Your will be done, Your Kingdom come on the earth." Thirdly, I think that anyone who thinks that social justice is a fad is a heretic. If there are two thousand verses in the Bible that call us to meet the needs of the poor, to negate that reality is to deny the importance of the scriptures.

Micah 6:8 says, "And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

It's about time we got our behavioural patterns dictated by scripture.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Faithworks magazine, copyright CCP Ltd 2008, reproduced with permission. www.faithworksmagazine.info Photo by Layton Thompson

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