Video from Polite Leader
"The red letter movement is a group of progressives who claim that their ideology is based upon the teachings of Jesus found in red letter print in certain editions of the Bible. Tony Campolo is one of the contingent's leading proponents. In this video, I provide a summary and short refutation based upon a D.A. Carson article." from video introduction.
"The latest edition of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology looks incredibly helpful (especially Peter Gentry’s essay on the covenants):
Stephen J. Wellum (editorial), “Reflecting on the Kingdom of God”
Graeme Goldsworthy, “The Kingdom of God as Hermeneutic Grid”
Peter J. Gentry, “Kingdom Through Covenant: Humanity as the Divine Image”
Jonathan T. Pennington, “The Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew”
Brian Vickers, “The Kingdom of God in Paul’s Gospel”
Russell D. Moore and Robert E. Sagers, “The Kingdom of God and the Church: A Baptist Reassessment”
Todd L. Miles, “A Kingdom without a King? Evaluating the Kingdom Ethic(s) of the Emerging Church”
The SBJT Forum
Book Reviews
One highlight from SBJT is often D.A. Carson’s contribution to their Forum. In this issue he is asked “What are the most common errors that people make when it comes to understanding and proclaiming the kingdom?” He lists several, the final one being the tendency to make “‘kingdom’ an adjective that blesses whatever I want blessed” (e.g., “kingdom ethics”). In particular, he applies this to the so-called “red letter Christians”:
A particularly virulent form of this approach is hidden behind what Tony Campolo now approvingly calls “red letter Christians.” These red letter Christians, he says, hold the same theological commitments as do other evangelicals, but they take the words of Jesus especially seriously (they devote themselves to the “red letters” of some foolishly printed Bibles) and end up being more concerned than are other Christians for the poor, the hungry, and those at war. Oh, rubbish: this is merely one more futile exercise in trying to find a “canon within the canon” to bless my preferred brand of theology. That’s the first of two serious mistakes commonly practiced by these red letter Christians. The other is worse: their actual grasp of what the red letter words of Jesus are actually saying in context far too frequently leaves a great deal to be desired; more particularly, to read the words of Jesus and emphasize them apart from the narrative framework of each of the canonical gospels, in which the plot-line takes the reader to Jesus’ redeeming death and resurrection, not only has the result of down-playing Jesus’ death and resurrection, but regularly fails to see how the red-letter words of Jesus point to and unpack the significance of his impending crosswork. In other words, it is not only Paul who says that Jesus’ cross and resurrection constitute matters “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3), and not only Paul who was resolved to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:1–5), but the shape of the narrative in each canonical gospel says the same thing. In each case the narrative rushes toward the cross and resurrection; the cross and resurrection are the climax. So to interpret the narrative, including the red-letter words of Jesus, apart from the climax to which they are rushing, is necessarily a distortion of the canonical gospels themselves..."
from the article: Carson on Red-Letter Christians
"Red Letter Christians (RLC) began in 2007 as a community of Christian authors and speakers meeting for a time of fellowship to discuss the pressing issues of the day. Tony Campolo gathered together friends who felt strongly that Western Christianity had lost its focus on Jesus and were concerned at the growing misuse of the word “evangelical” to identify a voting bloc. Their desire was a church that looked like Jesus and a recapturing of the term evangelical to mean a people who bring good news to the world.
In December 2010, co-founders Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne launched a blog as a home for the RLC network of speakers and authors to promote Red Letter living. Since then, Red Letter Christians has grown as a media and movement building organization reaching hundreds of thousands of Christians in emulating Jesus’ love, mercy, and countercultural way of life..." from the website below.
For further reading: redletterchristians.org
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