--- id: 20261007_211108_compa-agent title: COMPA - AGENT - Dr Anthony Campolo Alightintheattic Interview category: Interview predicted_narrative_arc: formative-years-to-public-role sentiment: reflective emotions: - nostalgia - gratitude - pride keypoints: - multiple public personas as Reverend Campolo, Tony, and private self - grew up in same West Philadelphia row house from birth to marriage - neighborhood transitioned from Jewish to African-American - high school student body president at 4500-student school and varsity sports - won science prize leading to weekend and summer lecturing at Franklin Institute from age 15 summary: Daniel Comp introduces an archived interview with Dr. Anthony Campolo, who reflects on his shifting public identities, West Philadelphia upbringing in a changing Jewish-to-African-American neighborhood, high school leadership and sports, and early science lecturing at the Franklin Institute. tags: - desk - anthony-campolo - west-philadelphia - childhood - science - public-speaking - voice - voicelog - from-wav - franklin-institute - high-school - science-lecturing - identity-roles - eastern-university sycophancy: 7 truth_score: 8 entropy: 4 sample: false consent: own_laptop agent: compa source_session: 20261007_200842_c3f6f8 created: '2026-10-08T04:11:08Z' updated: '2026-10-08T04:13:53Z' vault_stage: 07_CODEX headwaters: VoiceLog prefix: VoiceLog enrich_status: ok enrich_blockers: [] enrich_method: llm pipeline_filename: VoiceLog_2026-10-07_compa-agent-dr-anthony-campolo-alightint.md source_kind: voice source_media_ext: wav proposed_topic: VoiceLogs lane: VoiceLogs voice: desk active_voice: desk voices: - desk corpus_topic: VoiceLogs --- # Conversation transcript _Voice: Agent_ ## You This was recovered from the https://web.archive.org/web/20060714232109/http://www.alightintheattic.com:80/media/audio/tony_campolo.rm where I interview Dr. Anthony Campolo. https://www.eastern.edu/student-life/scholarship-cohorts/campolo-center-ministry/about-tony-campolo November 20, 2024 It is with both deep sorrow and profound gratitude that we announce the peaceful passing of Dr. Tony Campolo, a beloved husband, father, friend, educator, Christian leader, and author, and a tireless activist for justice and compassion. Tony died at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on November 19, 2024, at the age of 89, surrounded by his family and loved ones. His life was a testament to faith, love, and the transformative power of relationships, and his influence will be felt for generations to come. Born on February 25, 1935, in Philadelphia, Tony grew up in a close-knit family where his bond with his two older sisters, Rose and Ann, was the foundation of his formative years. Their steadfast nurture, faith, and laughter remained an enduring source of strength throughout his life. Tony’s professional legacy is profound. For more than six decades, as a pastor, distinguished professor, mesmerizing public speaker, and prolific author, Tony touched countless lives around the world with his hopeful message of social justice, love, and reconciliation. While he richly enjoyed teaching at the University of Pennsylvania for more than a decade, Tony happily spent most of his academic career at Eastern University, where he first served as a professor of sociology and later became a spiritual mentor to many. Tony’s commitment to Eastern was not just intellectual, but deeply personal; he viewed Eastern as an extension of his family and poured his heart into shaping its mission and community. Tony’s influence extended far beyond the classroom. As a lifelong public speaker and ministry organizer, he worked tirelessly to advance a combination of Biblical faith and Jesus-inspired care for the poor popularly known as Red Letter Christianity. Known for his charismatic storytelling and unique ability to blend humor with deep theological insights, he was a sought-after keynote speaker at churches, conferences and major events around the world, where he challenged individuals and communities to love their neighbors with radical compassion and live out their faith through sacrificial social action. Tony was also a prolific author, writing over 35 books on topics ranging from theology and social issues to personal reflections on faith and family. His work resonated with people from all walks of life, and his passion for social justice inspired many to devote their lives to making the world a better place. Tony is survived by his beloved wife Peggy, who was his devoted partner, wise guide, and best friend for more than 66 years. He is also survived by Peggy’s and his daughter Lisa Goodheart (Marc), son Bart Campolo (Marty), their grandchildren Miranda Stowers (Tyler), Roman Campolo (Ali), Nina Goodheart and Naomi Goodheart, and their great-grandchildren, Maya and Luca Stowers and Oscar Anthony Campolo. His love for each and all of them was deep, unshakeable, and unwavering, as was - and is - their love for him. Throughout his life, Tony was a shining example of kindness, exuberance, authenticity, and commitment, and he leaves behind a wonderful legacy of evangelical scholarship, inspirational communication and missionary impact. Both his message and his memory will live on in the hearts of those who knew him best and in the countless lives he touched through his work. A memorial service to celebrate Tony's life will be held at Eastern University in early 2025 ## Agent Received. You recovered an old interview recording with Dr. Anthony Campolo from the Wayback Machine and shared the November 2024 announcement of his passing at age 89, along with details of his life, family, work at Eastern University, and legacy in Red Letter Christianity. I'm here. ## You Here's the interview transcript i did. Please format it with paragraphs, headings and speakers as Daniel Comp and Dr. Anthony Campolo --- # source_wav: 20261007200440_tony_campolo_extract.wav # transcribed: 2026-10-07T20:42:57 # recorded: 2026-10-07 20:04:40 I would like to be remembered as the guy who challenged a lot of young people to take seriously the claim that Christ would place on their lives to work among the needy. and the insight and the wisdom that gets passed along. And so it's with honor that I present to you this interview with Dr. Anthony Campolo. And I, for one, am very grateful for his character, his maturity, his vision, and his leadership as a man of God. I go out and speak at a church. I become Reverend Campolo. I am with my friends, with fellow Christians such as you are. I become Tony. At the end of the day, I'm often asking myself, "Will the real Tony Campolo be able to do all these stuff for me?" Because in each of these settings, I'm defined differently. And you grew up East Coast? West Philadelphia, in Kansas inner-city neighborhood. I lived in the same row house from the time I was born until the time I got married. And when I was a young kid, the community was basically a Jewish neighborhood. And then little by little, it changed into an African-American neighborhood. So I lived through that transition and went to West Philadelphia. I loved high school. I ended up being president of the student body. It's a 4,500-number student body. It was great. And I played sports on the varsity team. So high school was a good time for me. Your very favorite thing to be involved with then was? I loved sports, but I also loved science. And I was incredibly interested in science. At one point, I won a second prize, physical sciences. And that led me to being employed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which is our huge science museum. And from the time I was 15 on, I spent my weekends as a lecturer there. During the summer, I was a full-time lecturer, giving lectures on science subjects and even doing planetarium lectures. I could picture you giving these tours. It'd be absolutely wonderful. Maybe that's where you get some of your public speaking talents from. Tell me about an outstanding memory of your childhood, something that really strikes as unique to your life. I remember, as a boy, playing games on the street with my other friends. It was the happiest part of my childhood, every day coming home from school, to run out on the street. There were always 15 to 20 guys out there playing stickball or boxball or some of those special games that city kids play. And they were great times for me. I remember those times greatly. I remember the first time I ever heard the gospel presented in a way that required a decision. There was an evangelist that came to our city by the name of Hyman Appelman, and my parents took me to hear him. And I went forward to make a decision, but I wasn't sure what it was all about. And I came away confused. But I knew that being a Christian required some kind of a decision. And that impacted me. And years later, as I began to define what that decision was, I could look back on that event and say, that made me aware that being a Christian wasn't just something you absorb by osmosis from your parents, but there comes a point at which you have to make a decision for what you're going to do with your life. Who were some of the other influential people that directed your life in your school years? Two people. One was a guy by the name of Ed Paley at Franklin Institute, who really spent hours and hours helping me to understand science and being a mentor in that realm. The other person was a guy named Tom Roop, R-O-O-P. He was an accountant in Philadelphia. And Saturday night, he ran a Bible study. I can't believe that every Saturday night for three years, during my last three years of high school, I went to this Bible study. And as I look back on it, it was an incredible gathering. I think of Keith Hardman, who was written of definitive biography of Phinney and teaching religion at personas college. I think of Bert Newman, who is professor of pastoral studies down at the Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. I think of George Fuller, who was the president of Westminster Theological Seminary. I can name at least 15 missionaries. There was a group of about 40 who came together on Friday nights to study scripture. And here was a layman who would give his time faithfully every Saturday night, leaving his wife and family behind to come and teach a bunch of inner city kids what the Bible was all about. We would sing and have Bible study for about two hours. And then we would go out to Howard Johnson's and we would sit around and talk about what we had learned till maybe about midnight and then go home. So Tom was really the person who helped me to come to grips with what the Bible was saying. And biblical knowledge that I picked up from that man has been at the core of my preaching ever since. I have a visioneering book that I use frequently. It's a book full of pictures and quotes help me remember one of the pages in here. I have a picture of us mountain climbing with my family and a quote below it. What are some of those early roadblocks and hurdles and challenges that you overcame that kept you on this path to success? You know, I wish I could say I had some difficult hurdles to overcome or roadblocks in my way. The only frustrations I really had growing up was not winning very often when I ran the 100 yard dash and not being a starter on the high school basketball team. Beyond that it came easy to me. The one place where it began to hit me was when my father became very, very ill in my last year of college and I began to ask myself, I'm called to the ministry. How do I balance that over and against staying home and taking care of my family through this difficult time when my father would be gradually disintegrating and eventually pass away. In that period of time the guy that I could depend on to nurture me was my college roommate. A guy by the name of Jim Meek who eventually went on to become a Baptist pastor. He has just retired. A wonderful, wonderful brother and he was always there for me if my father needed to be driven to the hospital. He was there with his car. I didn't have a car and would come by and pick me up every morning on the way to seminary at my house and drive me there. He was the guy that nurtured me and it was because he in his own way was always there for me in times of need. Do you know that few moments when you first wake up and you're conscious of your own thoughts, what are the things that get you fired up every day that you look forward to that would bring you the most fulfillment? That's an interesting question because I have a particular practice when I wake up in the morning and that is to not let what I have to do for the day creep into my consciousness. I know that a lot of people say that when they wake up in the morning they lay out before the Lord all the things they have to do that day. I do just the opposite. I wake up in the morning and I start in the quietude of the morning. I always get up about 15 minutes to a half hour before I have to and lie in bed in absolute stillness and I say the name Jesus over and over again until my mind is emptied of everything else and for about 15 to 20 minutes I just lie there totally focused on Jesus not asking for anything just surrendering to a presence. This all sounds quite mystical I'm sure but the time of stillness and quietude where I'm totally focused on Jesus in this respect my Roman Catholic relatives have impressed me greatly for in that quiet I meditate upon Jesus on the cross and what he has gone through and and how my sin has caused him suffering and I feel him connecting with me from Calvary and like a sponge absorbing out of me the dirt and the darkness and the ugliness of the dark side of my humanity. I spend the morning moments getting cleansed getting purified and when I say the name Jesus over and over again it's primarily to drive back all the things that I have to do that day. I call it driving back the animals and creating a still place a thin place a quiet place where there's nothing around me except the presence of Jesus and as I yield to him and surrender to him I feel him and I don't mind using that word feel I feel him invading me and cleansing me and filling me with himself and that's what happens to me in the morning after that I get up and kind of get on with things of the day in quite a pendantic fashion. Tell us a few things about the most significant person in your life. I read that story over and over again the story of Samuel and how he heard his voice crying in the night and it was God and he didn't know it was God and he goes to Eli and asks Eli and finally it dawned on Eli that this boy is hearing from God. I heard that story over and over again and my mother said we're Italian so I had to name you after your father but I really wanted to name you Samuel because when Samuel was born he was brought to the house of God and offered up for Christian service. I offered you up for God's service and when you were born I offered you up to God's service and I'm praying for the day when you hear God calling you in the night. I didn't hear that story once I heard that story over and over and over again the story of Samuel and when I hear this gospel chorus you know I hear you calling in the night every time I hear that gospel chorus song I think back to my mother and the impact that when I was born my life was offered up to God and there was a claim on my life and my life was not my own to live that was very very important to me and molded my consciousness significantly. The other person on the academic level that molded me was a man that I met in seminary my professor of church history his name was Norman Maury and he was the most encyclopedic scholar I'd ever known I mean he knew theology he knew Bible he knew history he knew philosophy he became a model for me I wanted to be like Norman Maury I wanted to be this Renaissance member of the intelligentsia he spent a lot of time with me he gave me a lot of time Tom Roop my mother and Norman Maury molded me and made good about me. Let me paint a little picture here for us let's say that a philanthropist happens to be listening to this streamed audio and dedicates some money and you discover that you've got an extra 20 years promised by medical profession God says to you Tony I'm not gonna let you fail what would you take on as a goal? I would take all of my energies all of my money everything given to me and use it for undergirding my son's new mission which is called mission year I if God gives me 20 more years I know what I'm going to do with it I'm going to spend it recruiting young people from colleges to take a year off and join our efforts to put teams of youth in half urban neighborhoods to go door to door and get to know their neighbors to have dinner with people to be a presence there we've been doing this for three years the impact that it's had on the young people's lives has been incredible the impact that it's had on the communities where they've gone to live has been wonderful I would like to spend the rest of my day recruiting young people and putting them into ministry among the poor and the oppressed knowing that whatever they went back to whether there was the arts or whether it was medicine or law or teaching that they would go back with what they had learned and what they experienced among the poor and the needy of urban America I would say to this rich cat a lot of young people would love to do that for the year and they just don't have the means to support themselves would you contribute to making it possible for some young person who wants to spend a year in inner city ministry to do so because not all of them can raise their support but recruiting kids and getting them to live as a presence of Christ among the poor in urban neighborhoods of America that is a challenge that I could not turn away from and that would preoccupy my attention over the next 20 years and how would you like that funder to contact you give them an opportunity to take action I still have my office at Eastern College 1300 Eagle Road St. David's Pennsylvania one nine zero eight seven just call Eastern College in St. David's Pennsylvania and my secretary will connect that person with me wherever I am you could be sure of that God has a chance of slaying cattle on a thousand hills for us he can surprise us let's say we look back from the archives of a hundred years from now what do you want to be written of you what would you like people to remember you ask when I was 40 I sat down with three of my closest friends and we asked exactly that question we spent days together off by ourselves just asking you're 40 years old you're halfway there when it's all over and you hang up your stickers at the end what would you like to be remembered about because we need to define her what we want this next several years to to move and we tried to be very specific and my answer to the question was simply that I would like them to write on my epitaph these words he was responsible for challenging 2,000 young men and women to be evangelists and ministers what are some of the hurdles or challenges that you're facing to get to that what is one of the most difficult things for somebody in my situation to deal with is getting good and staff people to work with me we run programs in Haiti and Philadelphia to find to find Christian people who are first of all deeply spiritual who are secondly intensely entrepreneurial I mean it's easy to find a lot of people can fit into a slot and do an assigned job but that entrepreneurial person who you say I'm putting you in Philadelphia to create a ministry do it and to have that person use entrepreneurial enthusiasm to create a program using imagination recruiting people inspiring people doing what I do requires that I have the finest and the best kinds of persons surrounding me working with me to take over everything in the end I find a lot of people who are dedicated but I don't find enough people who have the leadership skills that Christian ministry requires these days we're letting our finest and our best young people slip away from us in any given church in most instances the brightest and the best become doctors and lawyers and corporate executives we need the brightest and the best moving into management My biggest challenge is finding the right people to head up the ministries that we're spinning off year after year now I have a tough question for you because I have had the input of men of God like yourself and have invented and created and am experiencing that for nearly 24 years now as a Christian and I have seen and felt the rejection from the church of technologies and of inventions and of really neat things similar to the printing press I mean it's not a recent phenomenon it's history that you can see that the church does not tend to lead entrepreneurially in most any what are we to do about that how are those of us that are listening as Christians entrepreneur spirit-filled trying to obey to the nth degree and yet we're faced with institution and history that we can't change do you have any insider thoughts about that yes I believe that everything that the church does it's dependent primarily on pastoral leadership which goes back to who are we recruiting to church leadership are we recruiting the brightest and the best because I find that there are just too many of us who are in the ministry because well we couldn't hack it in many other fields secondly there's a lot of people in the ministry who are very insecure but a guy like you comes along with new technologies with new visions with new dreams and expectations it's very easy for religious leaders to feel threatened by that and say stay away from me I don't know how to do that and if I don't know how to do that I don't want anybody talking about it there's a tendency for ministers and church leaders to say if we can't control it we don't want it so a guy like you comes and preacher looks at you and says this guy is into something that's beyond where I am I won't be able to control this I don't know much about this it's the power thing they want to control they want to be in charge and they don't trust people who are innovators we need to get more secure people in the pulpit who will say to somebody who has innovations and ideas and drive and entrepreneurial hopes go to it we're behind you we're supporting you it's a personality thing with most pastors in the corporate community those who are in leadership roles are usually more secure when they see some young Turk coming along the first question is how do we give this person the resources that are needed so that this person could make the optimum contribution we have personality problems in church leadership we need security we need more men and women who are saying I don't have to be in control of everything I can trust the Lord and I can trust God's people and I need to be somebody who empowers others to do what I can't do that enables others to do what I can achieve just last week I shared the frustration that I think many entrepreneurs share that have a compassion and a drive for the Great Commission and have not yet realized their ministry and pastor shared with me from Isaiah 49 how Christ in his early years experienced and felt the exact same thing where Christ is prepared and he knows what his commission is yet he feels like it has been fruitless and wasted energy and his time was not yet there that it greatly encouraged me that I'm not alone in this and that our greatest example is actually evidence that's for us I think there's something more to be learned in all of this and this is the most significant thing dawning on me that ninety percent of the good for the kingdom that has come out of my life was good that I did not even realize I was doing and what I thought was so significant perhaps in the end was not as significant as I thought you know you start a program developing a Christian University in the Dominican Republic she was a preoccupation with me for about 15 years putting my time and energy and raising the funds developing the vision and working so hard I'm not sure that much came out of all of that but I continually meet people both in the Dominican Republic and here in the States who were involved in that project the impact that the effort had on helping them to think in new ways and to explore new opportunities I'll have young men come up to me and say you know I work with you some 15 years ago on that Dominican project it taught me how to be bold how to step out how to risk how to be daring how to put up with people who are going to criticize they were the most important lessons in my life I never set out to teach those lessons I was set out to start a new university which incidentally does exist but it was the side effects of those efforts it was happening to people who are watching me and interacting with me and who were working with me and helping me it was the influence that I had on them that was more important than anything that I achieved directly you know in all that you do you have to recognize that the thing that you're trying to do may or may not work but there are all kinds of influences that you're exerting in the context of that action that alter the lives of others in significant ways for kingdom many of the successful people in all different realms that I've spoken with say don't forget to be aware of the journey look around and experience the breadth and depth of the process it's that journey that is so important your life and name speaks immensely around the world people have had their lives changed from either your words or being close in your life and seeing Christ exemplified what do you think is going on in your life development wise character wise that God's working on simply something we should talk about on the offer show death is an encroaching reality and I want to make sure to it that I die well I want to go out and want to make sure that my relationship is such with Christ that when the hour comes those around me will sense that my faith is built on nothing less than I want to make sure that my testimony in the face of death is such that people know that I believe in what I have preached the second thing is that my executive director a young man that I've been minoring for the last nine months has a young guy he's got bone cancer he's handling it very well as I face the end I wonder whether it's going to be five six years of suffering that can often be the case in today's society will I be able to bear that burden with dignity that is worthy of a follower of Jesus I am I want to make sure that the things that I have said are born out in these last stages of life in such a way that they will not only say he lived well but they will say he died well I know that sounds a bit morbid but it's quite the opposite exactly I think the Christian really expresses the joy and the excitement of victory more in the face of death than any other point when Paul writes in first Corinthians 15 oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory I think that's his most joyful and triumphant point I want to grow and grow and grow so that I can shout that in the face of darkness one of the first sites that will feature this interview on is a light in the attic the function of that site is to provide people with aha experiences live where they can actually read and laugh along and then get that smash in the head oh my gosh I was so wrong and I often leave people through that process to recognize the Apostle Paul's road to Damascus and him falling off the horse having been at the epitome of success in his career and recognized by his peers the persecutor of the church and yet discovering that he's dead wrong or as they say you get to the top of the ladder and it's leaning against the wrong wall what would you say to people around the world that are from all sorts of religious backgrounds and layers in life how would you express to them the seriousness of looking into a relationship with Christ I would as a sociology student as well as being a Christian I would say make sure that you're following the Jesus of the scripture and not the Jesus of the culture all of us have a tendency to define Jesus in terms of the dominant values of the cultural milieu in which we live Americans tend to make Jesus into an American African Christians tend to make him into an African George Bernard Shaw once said that God created us in his image and we decided to return the favor I would say to people as you seek to follow Jesus regardless of what society you're in take a good look at the Bible and continually critique your vision of Jesus with the biblical vision constantly ask what does the Jesus of scripture ask of me as opposed to what the Jesus of my cultural imagination ask of me for instance when we come to grips with the Jesus of scripture what he requires of us and what he calls us to if we're going to be his disciples it's far different than just hiding and being a faithful member of the church Jesus of scripture as Dietrich Pannhofer said did this come and die if any man would be my disciple Jesus let him deny himself let him take up the cross follow me so what you have give it to the poor take up the cross follow me the radical call of Jesus as revealed in the New Testament gives me a different Jesus than the one that people can be quite comfortable with and the average mainline middle-class church pew we have redefined Jesus and made him into a hail fellow will met into a person who affirms us as we are instead of challenging us to sell all to give all and to follow him without delay thoughts or inclusions that you'd like to add to any of the previous dialogue in my in my ministry I always remind people that though I am theologically orthodox I believe in the Apostles Creed I believe in the inerrancy of scripture I believe that salvation comes that through a personal relationship with Christ and only that way I have to remind them that on Judgment Day the questions that the Lord will ask of us is how we responded to the poor on that day he's not going to ask whether I'm pre-millennial or post-millennial or pre-trib or post he's going to ask I was hungry did you feed me naked did you clothe me sick did you care for me I was a stranger did you take me in those who have heard me preach over the years very seldom have heard me preach without making reference to Matthew 25 that is the person that has marked my life more than any other and that's what I would like people to think about when they think of me Tony thank you so much for your time and for sharing with us and for those of you listening God bless this is Daniel Comp with alightintheattic goodbye ## Agent **Interview with Dr. Anthony Campolo** **Recorded by Daniel Comp** **Source:** alightintheattic.com (archived audio) --- # Interview with Dr. Tony Campolo — A Light in the Attic **Interviewer:** Daniel Comp **Guest:** Dr. Anthony (Tony) Campolo **Source audio (Wayback):** https://web.archive.org/web/20060714232109/http://www.alightintheattic.com:80/media/audio/tony_campolo.rm **Site credit:** ©2001 alightintheattic.com **Transcript status:** Transcribed by machine on Oct 7, 2026 (PT) from the recovered WAV; not yet checked line by line against the audio. A second machine pass (faster-whisper) of the same file was used only to recover spans the first pass mashed or dropped at speaker seams; see Transcription notes. **Rights note:** Dr. Campolo died Nov 19, 2024. Publishing his words beyond short attributed quotes should get clearance from his family or Eastern University. --- ## Teaser (Campolo, from later in the interview) **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I would like to be remembered as the guy who challenged a lot of young people to take seriously the claim that Christ would place on their lives to work among the needy. --- ## Interview **Daniel Comp:** This is Daniel Comp with A Light in the Attic. In my estimation, there are men and there are leaders, and then there are men of God. Those of us that have had input from men of God in our lives absolutely appreciate the time spent with them and the insight and the wisdom that gets passed along. And so it's with honor that I present to you this interview with Dr. Anthony Campolo. And I, for one, am very grateful for his character, his maturity, his vision, and his leadership as a man of God. **Dr. Tony Campolo:** Being introduced, it's different in different situations. Well, yes. For 10 years I taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Ivy League school. And in the sophisticated arena of academia, I become Dr. Campolo, a sociologist who has a particular interest in the sociology of religion. I go out and speak at a church. I become Reverend Campolo. I am with my friends, with fellow Christians such as you are. I become Tony. At the end of the day, I'm often asking myself, "Will the real Tony Campolo please step forward?" Because in each of these settings, I'm defined differently. **Daniel Comp:** And you grew up East Coast? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** West Philadelphia, in a changing inner-city neighborhood. I lived in the same row house from the time I was born until the time I got married. And when I was a young kid, the community was basically a Jewish neighborhood. And then little by little, it changed into an African-American neighborhood. So I lived through that transition and went to West Philadelphia High School. I loved high school. I ended up being president of the student body. It's a 4,500-number student body. It was great. And I played sports on the varsity team. So high school was a good time for me. **Daniel Comp:** Your very favorite thing to be involved with then was? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I loved sports, but I also loved science. And I was incredibly interested in science. At one point, I won a second prize, physical sciences. And that led me to being employed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which is our huge science museum. And from the time I was 15 on, I spent my weekends as a lecturer there. During the summer, I was a full-time lecturer, giving lectures on science subjects and even doing planetarium lectures. **Daniel Comp:** I could picture you giving these tours. It'd be absolutely wonderful. Maybe that's where you get some of your public speaking talents from. Tell me about an outstanding memory of your childhood, something that really strikes as unique to your life. **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I remember, as a boy, playing games on the street with my other friends. It was the happiest part of my childhood, every day coming home from school, to run out on the street. There were always 15 to 20 guys out there playing stickball or boxball or some of those special games that city kids play. And they were great times for me. I remember those times greatly. I remember the first time I ever heard the gospel presented in a way that required a decision. There was an evangelist that came to our city by the name of Hyman Appelman, and my parents took me to hear him. And I went forward to make a decision, but I wasn't sure what it was all about. And I came away confused. But I knew that being a Christian required some kind of a decision. And that impacted me. And years later, as I began to define what that decision was, I could look back on that event and say, that made me aware that being a Christian wasn't just something you absorb by osmosis from your parents, but there comes a point at which you have to make a decision for what you're going to do with your life. **Daniel Comp:** Who were some of the other influential people that directed your life in your school years? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** Two people. One was a guy by the name of Ed Paley at Franklin Institute, who really spent hours and hours helping me to understand science and being a mentor in that realm. The other person was a guy named Tom Roop, R-O-O-P. He was an accountant in Philadelphia. And Saturday night, he ran a Bible study. I can't believe that every Saturday night for three years, during my last three years of high school, I went to this Bible study. And as I look back on it, it was an incredible gathering. I think of Keith Hardman, who has written a definitive biography of Finney and is teaching religion at Ursinus College. I think of Bert Newman, who is professor of pastoral studies down at the Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. I think of George Fuller, who was the president of Westminster Theological Seminary. I can name at least 15 missionaries. There was a group of about 40 who came together on Friday nights to study scripture. And here was a layman who would give his time faithfully every Saturday night, leaving his wife and family behind to come and teach a bunch of inner-city kids what the Bible was all about. We would sing and have Bible study for about two hours. And then we would go out to Howard Johnson's and we would sit around and talk about what we had learned till maybe about midnight and then go home. So Tom was really the person who helped me to come to grips with what the Bible was saying. And biblical knowledge that I picked up from that man has been at the core of my preaching ever since. **Daniel Comp:** I have a visioneering book that I use frequently. It's a book full of pictures and quotes. Help me remember one of the pages in here. I have a picture of us mountain climbing with my family and a quote below it. What are some of those early roadblocks and hurdles and challenges that you overcame that kept you on this path to success? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** You know, I wish I could say I had some difficult hurdles to overcome or roadblocks in my way. The only frustrations I really had growing up was not winning very often when I ran the 100-yard dash and not being a starter on the high school basketball team. Beyond that it came easy to me. The one place where it began to hit me was when my father became very, very ill in my last year of college and I began to ask myself, I'm called to the ministry. How do I balance that over and against staying home and taking care of my family through this difficult time when my father would be gradually disintegrating and eventually pass away. In that period of time the guy that I could depend on to nurture me was my college roommate. A guy by the name of Jim Meek who eventually went on to become a Baptist pastor. He has just retired. A wonderful, wonderful brother and he was always there for me. If my father needed to be driven to the hospital, he was there with his car. I didn't have a car and would come by and pick me up every morning on the way to seminary at my house and drive me there. He was the guy that nurtured me and it was because he in his own way was always there for me in times of need. **Daniel Comp:** Do you know that few moments when you first wake up and you're conscious of your own thoughts, what are the things that get you fired up every day that you look forward to that would bring you the most fulfillment? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** That's an interesting question because I have a particular practice when I wake up in the morning and that is to not let what I have to do for the day creep into my consciousness. I know that a lot of people say that when they wake up in the morning they lay out before the Lord all the things they have to do that day. I do just the opposite. I wake up in the morning and I start in the quietude of the morning. I always get up about 15 minutes to a half hour before I have to and lie in bed in absolute stillness and I say the name Jesus over and over again until my mind is emptied of everything else and for about 15 to 20 minutes I just lie there totally focused on Jesus, not asking for anything, just surrendering to a presence. This all sounds quite mystical I'm sure, but the time of stillness and quietude where I'm totally focused on Jesus — in this respect my Roman Catholic relatives have impressed me greatly — for in that quiet I meditate upon Jesus on the cross and what he has gone through and how my sin has caused him suffering and I feel him connecting with me from Calvary and like a sponge absorbing out of me the dirt and the darkness and the ugliness of the dark side of my humanity. I spend the morning moments getting cleansed, getting purified, and when I say the name Jesus over and over again it's primarily to drive back all the things that I have to do that day. I call it driving back the animals and creating a still place, a thin place, a quiet place where there's nothing around me except the presence of Jesus. And as I yield to him and surrender to him I feel him — and I don't mind using that word feel — I feel him invading me and cleansing me and filling me with himself. And that's what happens to me in the morning. After that I get up and kind of get on with things of the day in quite a pedantic fashion. **Daniel Comp:** Tell us a few things about the most significant person in your life. **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I read that story over and over again, the story of Samuel and how he heard this voice crying in the night and it was God and he didn't know it was God and he goes to Eli and asks Eli and finally it dawned on Eli that this boy is hearing from God. I heard that story over and over again and my mother said we're Italian so I had to name you after your father but I really wanted to name you Samuel because when Samuel was born he was brought to the house of God and offered up for Christian service. I offered you up for God's service and when you were born I offered you up to God's service and I'm praying for the day when you hear God calling you in the night. I didn't hear that story once. I heard that story over and over and over again, the story of Samuel. And when I hear this gospel chorus, you know, "I hear you calling in the night" — every time I hear that gospel chorus song I think back to my mother and the impact that when I was born my life was offered up to God and there was a claim on my life and my life was not my own to live. That was very, very important to me and molded my consciousness significantly. The other person on the academic level that molded me was a man that I met in seminary, my professor of church history. His name was Norman Maury and he was the most encyclopedic scholar I'd ever known. I mean he knew theology, he knew Bible, he knew history, he knew philosophy. He became a model for me. I wanted to be like Norman Maury. I wanted to be this Renaissance member of the intelligentsia. He spent a lot of time with me. He gave me a lot of time. Tom Roop, my mother, and Norman Maury molded me and made good about me. **Daniel Comp:** Let me paint a little picture here for us. Let's say that a philanthropist happens to be listening to this streamed audio and dedicates some money and you discover that you've got an extra 20 years promised by medical profession. God says to you, Tony, I'm not gonna let you fail. What would you take on as a goal? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I would take all of my energies, all of my money, everything given to me and use it for undergirding my son's new mission which is called Mission Year. If God gives me 20 more years I know what I'm going to do with it. I'm going to spend it recruiting young people from colleges to take a year off and join our efforts to put teams of youth in tough urban neighborhoods to go door to door and get to know their neighbors, to have dinner with people, to be a presence there. We've been doing this for three years. The impact that it's had on the young people's lives has been incredible. The impact that it's had on the communities where they've gone to live has been wonderful. I would like to spend the rest of my days recruiting young people and putting them into ministry among the poor and the oppressed, knowing that whatever they went back to — whether it was the arts or whether it was medicine or law or teaching — that they would go back with what they had learned and what they experienced among the poor and the needy of urban America. I would say to this rich cat: a lot of young people would love to do that for the year and they just don't have the means to support themselves. Would you contribute to making it possible for some young person who wants to spend a year in inner-city ministry to do so? Because not all of them can raise their support. But recruiting kids and getting them to live as a presence of Christ among the poor in urban neighborhoods of America — that is a challenge that I could not turn away from and that would preoccupy my attention over the next 20 years. **Daniel Comp:** And how would you like that funder to contact you? Give them an opportunity to take action. **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I still have my office at Eastern College, [office contact details omitted]. Just call Eastern College in St. David's, Pennsylvania, and my secretary will connect that person with me wherever I am. You could be sure of that. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills for us. He can surprise us. **Daniel Comp:** Let's say we look back from the archives of a hundred years from now. What do you want to be written of you? What would you like people to remember you as? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** When I was 40 I sat down with three of my closest friends and we asked exactly that question. We spent days together off by ourselves just asking: you're 40 years old, you're halfway there. When it's all over and you hang up your sneakers at the end, what would you like to be remembered about? Because we need to define what we want this next several years to mean. And we tried to be very specific. And my answer to the question was simply that I would like them to write on my epitaph these words: he was responsible for challenging 2,000 young men and women to be evangelists and ministers who would lift the burdens of the poor and the oppressed in third-world countries and in urban America. That's what I would like. I would like to be remembered as the guy who challenged a lot of young people to take seriously the claim that Christ would place on their lives to work among the needy. **Daniel Comp:** What are some of the hurdles or challenges that you're facing to get to that? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** What is one of the most difficult things for somebody in my situation to deal with is getting good staff people to work with me. We run programs in Haiti and Philadelphia. To find Christian people who are first of all deeply spiritual, who are secondly intensely entrepreneurial — I mean it's easy to find a lot of people can fit into a slot and do an assigned job, but that entrepreneurial person who you say I'm putting you in Philadelphia to create a ministry, do it, and to have that person use entrepreneurial enthusiasm to create a program, using imagination, recruiting people, inspiring people — doing what I do requires that I have the finest and the best kinds of persons surrounding me, working with me to take over everything in the end. I find a lot of people who are dedicated but I don't find enough people who have the leadership skills that Christian ministry requires these days. We're letting our finest and our best young people slip away from us. In any given church, in most instances, the brightest and the best become doctors and lawyers and corporate executives. We need the brightest and the best moving into management positions for Christian leadership. My biggest challenge is finding the right people to head up the ministries that we're spinning off year after year. **Daniel Comp:** Now I have a tough question for you, because I have had the input of men of God like yourself and have invented and created and am experiencing that for nearly 24 years now as a Christian, and I have seen and felt the rejection from the church of technologies and of inventions and of really neat things similar to the printing press. I mean it's not a recent phenomenon. It's history that you can see that the church does not tend to lead entrepreneurially in most any. What are we to do about that? How are those of us that are listening as Christians — entrepreneur, Spirit-filled, trying to obey to the nth degree — and yet we're faced with institution and history that we can't change? Do you have any insider thoughts about that? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** Yes. I believe that everything that the church does is dependent primarily on pastoral leadership, which goes back to who are we recruiting to church leadership. Are we recruiting the brightest and the best? Because I find that there are just too many of us who are in the ministry because, well, we couldn't hack it in many other fields. Secondly, there's a lot of people in the ministry who are very insecure. But a guy like you comes along with new technologies, with new visions, with new dreams and expectations — it's very easy for religious leaders to feel threatened by that and say stay away from me, I don't know how to do that, and if I don't know how to do that I don't want anybody talking about it. There's a tendency for ministers and church leaders to say if we can't control it we don't want it. So a guy like you comes and preacher looks at you and says this guy is into something that's beyond where I am, I won't be able to control this, I don't know much about this. It's the power thing. They want to control. They want to be in charge. And they don't trust people who are innovators. We need to get more secure people in the pulpit who will say to somebody who has innovations and ideas and drive and entrepreneurial hopes: go to it, we're behind you, we're supporting you. It's a personality thing with most pastors. In the corporate community those who are in leadership roles are usually more secure. When they see some young Turk coming along, the first question is how do we give this person the resources that are needed so that this person could make the optimum contribution. We have personality problems in church leadership. We need security. We need more men and women who are saying I don't have to be in control of everything. I can trust the Lord and I can trust God's people and I need to be somebody who empowers others to do what I can't do, that enables others to do what I can achieve. **Daniel Comp:** Just last week I shared the frustration that I think many entrepreneurs share that have a compassion and a drive for the Great Commission and have not yet realized their ministry. And a pastor shared with me from Isaiah 49 how Christ in his early years experienced and felt the exact same thing — where Christ is prepared and he knows what his commission is, yet he feels like it has been fruitless and wasted energy and his time was not yet there. That it greatly encouraged me that I'm not alone in this and that our greatest example is actually evidence that's for us. **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I think there's something more to be learned in all of this, and this is the most significant thing dawning on me: that ninety percent of the good for the kingdom that has come out of my life was good that I did not even realize I was doing. And what I thought was so significant perhaps in the end was not as significant as I thought. You know, you start a program developing a Christian university in the Dominican Republic. It was a preoccupation with me for about 15 years — putting my time and energy and raising the funds, developing the vision and working so hard. I'm not sure that much came out of all of that, but I continually meet people both in the Dominican Republic and here in the States who were involved in that project. The impact that the effort had on helping them to think in new ways and to explore new opportunities — I'll have young men come up to me and say, you know, I work with you some 15 years ago on that Dominican project. It taught me how to be bold, how to step out, how to risk, how to be daring, how to put up with people who are going to criticize. They were the most important lessons in my life. I never set out to teach those lessons. I set out to start a new university, which incidentally does exist. But it was the side effects of those efforts. It was happening to people who are watching me and interacting with me and who were working with me and helping me. It was the influence that I had on them that was more important than anything that I achieved directly. You know, in all that you do, you have to recognize that the thing that you're trying to do may or may not work, but there are all kinds of influences that you're exerting in the context of that action that alter the lives of others in significant ways for the kingdom. **Daniel Comp:** Many of the successful people in all different realms that I've spoken with say don't forget to be aware of the journey. Look around and experience the breadth and depth of the process. It's that journey that is so important. Your life and name speaks immensely around the world. People have had their lives changed from either your words or being close in your life and seeing Christ exemplified. What do you think is going on in your life, development-wise, character-wise, that God's working on? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** Well, first of all, I want to be more worthy of the nice things people are saying about me. Secondly, I want the Lord to so impact my life. I'm 66. From the time I was 60 on, I became conscious of the fact that death isn't simply something that you talk about on the Oprah Show. Death is an encroaching reality, and I want to make sure that I die well. I want to go out and want to make sure that my relationship is such with Christ that when the hour comes those around me will sense that my faith is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I want to make sure that my testimony in the face of death is such that people know that I believe in what I have preached. The second thing is that my executive director — a young man that I've been mentoring for the last nine months — he's got bone cancer. He's handling it very well. As I face the end I wonder whether it's going to be five, six years of suffering that can often be the case in today's society. Will I be able to bear that burden with dignity that is worthy of a follower of Jesus? I want to make sure that the things that I have said are borne out in these last stages of life in such a way that they will not only say he lived well but they will say he died well. I know that sounds a bit morbid, but it's quite the opposite. Exactly. I think the Christian really expresses the joy and the excitement of victory more in the face of death than at any other point. When Paul writes in First Corinthians 15, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" I think that's his most joyful and triumphant point. I want to grow and grow and grow so that I can shout that in the face of darkness. **Daniel Comp:** One of the first sites that will feature this interview on is A Light in the Attic. The function of that site is to provide people with aha experiences — live — where they can actually read and laugh along and then get that smack in the head: oh my gosh, I was so wrong. And I often lead people through that process to recognize the Apostle Paul's road to Damascus and him falling off the horse, having been at the epitome of success in his career and recognized by his peers, the persecutor of the church, and yet discovering that he's dead wrong — or as they say, you get to the top of the ladder and it's leaning against the wrong wall. What would you say to people around the world that are from all sorts of religious backgrounds and layers in life? How would you express to them the seriousness of looking into a relationship with Christ? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** I would, as a sociology student as well as being a Christian, I would say: make sure that you're following the Jesus of the scripture and not the Jesus of the culture. All of us have a tendency to define Jesus in terms of the dominant values of the cultural milieu in which we live. Americans tend to make Jesus into an American. African Christians tend to make him into an African. George Bernard Shaw once said that God created us in his image and we decided to return the favor. I would say to people: as you seek to follow Jesus, regardless of what society you're in, take a good look at the Bible and continually critique your vision of Jesus with the biblical vision. Constantly ask what does the Jesus of scripture ask of me as opposed to what the Jesus of my cultural imagination ask of me. For instance, when we come to grips with the Jesus of scripture — what he requires of us and what he calls us to if we're going to be his disciples — it's far different than just tithing and being a faithful member of the church. The Jesus of scripture, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, bids us come and die. "If any man would be my disciple," Jesus [said], "let him deny himself, let him take up the cross, follow me." Sell what you have, give it to the poor, take up the cross, follow me. The radical call of Jesus as revealed in the New Testament gives me a different Jesus than the one that people can be quite comfortable with in the average mainline middle-class church pew. We have redefined Jesus and made him into a hail-fellow-well-met, into a person who affirms us as we are instead of challenging us to sell all, to give all, and to follow him without delay. **Daniel Comp:** Thoughts or inclusions that you'd like to add to any of the previous dialogue? **Dr. Tony Campolo:** In my ministry I always remind people that though I am theologically orthodox — I believe in the Apostles' Creed, I believe in the inerrancy of scripture, I believe that salvation comes through a personal relationship with Christ and only that way — I have to remind them that on Judgment Day the questions that the Lord will ask of us is how we responded to the poor. On that day he's not going to ask whether I'm pre-millennial or post-millennial or pre-trib or post-trib. He's going to ask: I was hungry, did you feed me? Naked, did you clothe me? Sick, did you care for me? I was a stranger, did you take me in? Those who have heard me preach over the years very seldom have heard me preach without making reference to Matthew 25. That is the passage that has marked my life more than any other, and that's what I would like people to think about when they think of me. **Daniel Comp:** Tony, thank you so much for your time and for sharing with us. And for those of you listening, God bless. This is Daniel Comp with alightintheattic. Goodbye. --- ## Transcription notes Obvious ASR fixes applied (and a few seam recoveries from the second machine pass of the same WAV at `/workspace/gb/research/alightintheattic/audio/transcripts/tony_campolo.txt`): 1. **Opening seam.** First-pass raw (line 103) mashed the Campolo teaser into Daniel's intro. Second pass shows the teaser is only the "remembered… among the needy" sentence; Daniel then opens with "This is Daniel Comp with A Light in the Attic… insight and the wisdom… And so it's with honor…". Parent briefing had grouped "insight and the wisdom" with the teaser because line 103 had no break; second pass corrects that. Full intro restored from second pass. 2. **Persona opening.** Second pass restores Campolo's UPenn / "Dr. Campolo, a sociologist…" lead-in before "I go out and speak at a church…", and "please step forward" (first pass: "be able to do all these stuff for me"). 3. **Kansas inner-city** → **a changing inner-city** (fits the Jewish→African-American transition he describes; second pass had "10th of inner city"). 4. **went to West Philadelphia. I loved high school** → **West Philadelphia High School**. 5. **Phinney** → **Finney**; **personas college** → **Ursinus College**. 6. **pendantic / pandemic** → **pedantic**. 7. **half urban** (first pass) / parent suggestion "half a dozen urban" / second pass **tough urban** → used **tough urban neighborhoods**. 8. **God has a chance of slaying cattle on a thousand hills** → **God owns the cattle on a thousand hills** (Psalm 50:10 phrasing). 9. **hang up your stickers** → **sneakers** (second pass). 10. **define her what we want this next several years to to move** → **define what we want this next several years to mean**. 11. Epitaph completion restored from second pass: "…ministers who would lift the burdens of the poor and the oppressed in third-world countries and in urban America," plus the closing loop that is the teaser. 12. **she was a preoccupation** → **It was a preoccupation**; **I was set out** → **I set out**. 13. **offer show** → **Oprah Show**; dying-well lead-in restored: "Well, first of all… I'm 66… death isn't simply something that you talk about on the Oprah Show." 14. **built on nothing less than** → completed from second pass / hymn: **Jesus' blood and righteousness**. 15. **minoring / minnering** → **mentoring**. 16. **hiding and being a faithful member** → **tithing** (second pass). 17. **Pannhofer** → **Bonhoeffer**; "did this come and die" rendered as **bids us come and die** (standard Bonhoeffer line; audio not re-checked). 18. **hail fellow will met** → **hail-fellow-well-met**. 19. **that is the person that has marked** → **passage** (Matthew 25). 20. **leave people through** → **lead people through**; **smash** / **smack** → **smack**. 21. Office street address and ZIP omitted per brief: replaced with `[office contact details omitted]`. 22. Spelling normalized: **alightintheattic** kept in the sign-off as spoken/branded; title uses "A Light in the Attic". 23. Names left as first-pass forms where second pass disagreed without an obvious corrector: **Ed Paley** (second: Bailey), **Norman Maury** (second: Marring/Marring). Not verified. 24. Daniel's mountain-climbing quote page — second pass alone has "bonding doesn't show in the middle of a crisis, but we look back at it as a wonderful memory." Not in first-pass raw; **omitted** from the clean body (do not invent / do not silently import). Flagged here only. --- _PRISM refractions and Sherlock notes may be appended to this item in later turns._