Quotes from Bart Campolo

If you don't believe in transcendent experience, you haven't been to the right concert, you know, you haven't used the right drugs, you haven't had sex with the right partner.

I've spent the last thirty years of my life telling the parents of gay and lesbian kids that as Christians, the only thing any of us can do is to accept and love our kids unconditionally, just as they are. I am certainly not about to do anything else when it comes to our own son.

Maybe it was because I'd effectively functioned as an agnostic for a few years already, but it never occurred to me that life without God might have no meaning. On the contrary, among my first thoughts after my deconversion was this: Holy mackerel! Evangelizing people to love, justice, and community is going to be a whole lot easier now that I don't have to convince them to buy a whole set of unbelievable Iron Age myths at the same time!

Nobody becomes or remains good in isolation. We have to help one another grow.

As far as I am concerned, the notion that God requires a blood sacrifice to forgive the sins of humanity is easily the saddest, most hurtful, and most discouraging doctrine ever invented.

Simply stated, even when we know better, most of us feel deeply hurt and offended when we realize the person we are talking to genuinely believes we are doomed to hell. In a real sense, to write someone off that way is the ultimate act of disrespect, effectively negating every good thing they have ever said or done unless they change their mind and agree with us.