Life after prison - does a past deny a right to a future? / Bart Campolo (former evangelist) interview

Everyday Ethics: Life after prison - does a past deny a right to a future?

[On recruiting former prisoners] 'Within two years of leaving prison, 61% of ex offenders go back. But if they got a job that drops to 90%… the only risk you’re taking, you’re taking all the time, is that you pick the wrong, wrong man or woman. But you're actually, when you think about it, you're taking less risks than you are because we know exactly what's happened. They know the person's record, they can't hide what they have done. Large number of people out there in employment, who’ve got a criminal record, the employers don't know about it. So we obviously are not going to take on people where we consider there is any risk at all, particularly to our customers or to other colleagues. But that's never really been an issue...

Interview with one of the best known evangelists in the US, Bart Campolo, becoming an agnostic:

‘Did you ever really believe those dogmas?’

‘Well, golly, you know, that's, that's one of those things where, I think I did. But I mean, we, whenever we're in, you know, if you've ever broken up a romance, and then ask yourself, did you really ever love that woman or that man? You know, you go like, well, I thought I did. But now looking back at it now, I think there was always this going on. But for me, yeah, I had transcendent experiences as a Christian. I had moments in which I was sure that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. I had moments in which things came together in such a way as it really felt like there was a divine architect, and I and I really interpreted those experiences in the context of the Christian framework.

I still say I had those experiences, those were real, my friends who are still, who are Christians, sometimes when they hear that I'm not, they say, are you denying these experiences that I've had? Are you saying that I didn't hear a voice? Or that I didn't have a, have a moment of transcendence? Like, oh, no, no, I understand that most Christians have had all their transcendent experiences in the context of Christianity. And, and that's why they stay Christians. And so I would interpret those experiences I had as a Christian differently now. But they were authentic, and my faith was authentic. And so if somebody, if somebody heard me preach 15 years ago, and came to Jesus under my teaching, like, and they said, well, I bet you would, you're embarrassed about that now, or you would repudiate it? Oh, no, that was a sincere sermon at the time. And if that person's life was blessed by that sermon, I'm glad for that...

[My realisation that God wasn’t real] started early on, like when I first became a Christian, and I ended up working in the inner city. I saw horrors there, I had come into the city, in the inner city, seeing, believing that God was in control of everything, and that you could pray to God for traveling mercies, that you should, you could ask God, you know, for help with things, and he would intervene. And when I saw some of the things that were happening in my friends lives, I lost my ability to believe in the sovereignty of God in that way. So I changed my theology to match what I saw in reality. Later, I did the same thing when I had close friends who were gay, I changed my theology, and changed my understanding the Bible and actually started to ignore certain Bible verses, in order to make room for that. That wasn't for me, stepping onto the slippery slope.

Because once you start modifying your theology, to match up to what you want to believe, or what you see, what you see around you, you know, they warn you about that. The Orthodox ones worry about that. You can't start changing things to make it work for your, for your, for your situation. But for me, the end point was, you know, I had become a Universalist. I had become somebody who didn't trust, you know, who, I had been dialing down the supernatural for many years.

But I had a bicycle accident. I don't actually remember that. I remember leaving the house that morning. And I remember waking up in the hospital. But in between, evidently, I had a very bad bicycle accident where I went off the road. And if I hadn't been wearing a helmet, I would have surely been killed. But as it was, I had brain injury, and I was concussed and I had amnesia, for about a month, I wasn't myself. And didn't know if I would get back to myself. And when I did get back to myself, you know, I realized maybe for the first time in a very visceral way, that my identity was not a disembodied spirit that was inhabiting this body.

But rather, that it was right in my brain, was right in my body. That if you took a hammer to my head in one place, I would change. If you cut this part of my brain out, I would still, I would still be intelligent, but I would have no compassion, if you cut this other part, I would still want to eat food, but I wouldn't want to have sex. If you cut this other part, I wouldn't be able to form any short term memories or another part long term. And I realized, like, oh, my goodness, I'm right here, in my head, in my body, and when this body and brain die, I'll be gone.

I still believe in in eternal life, because I believe that my kids will still be alive. And then they'll have kids and, you know, life will go on without me. But I don't believe in eternal Bart Campolo, or William Crawley for that matter, because you may actually be God. But guess what, what happens is, is that when you realize that you don't believe in eternal life anymore? You know, for me, that was kind of the last dress and like, you know, I can't check any of these boxes anymore. I don't believe in the divinity of Christ. I don't believe in the Virgin Birth. I don't believe in the Resurrection after three days. I don't believe in any life beyond this one. Not, not that I'm sure that there isn't one. But I have no, I have no evidence that there is. And, and I realized, like, you know, there are some very basic boxes, you have to check if you want to call yourself a Christian, at least in the tradition that I came from…

When I came out of, out of Christianity, and trying to figure out what comes next for me, I started visiting like atheist groups and, and free thinking groups, thinking I would find sort of like the secular equivalent of the church. And what I found was, I would go to these groups, and they were like, a lot of times, the people at the center of them were very angry at religion. And they were, they wanted to debate and talk about how stupid it was to believe in God. And I wasn't interested in that at all. What I was interested in is, where's the group of people who say, listen, this life is all we have? How do we make the most of it? All, the way to make the most of this life is to love one another.’"