A Reminder of Why I Wanted to Follow Jesus ©2001
By Dwight A. Moody, Dean of the Chapel
Georgetown College

Tony Campolo came to town. In one evening of anecdotes and illustration, of laughter and tears, he reminded me of the vision of Christianity that captured my allegiance more than three decades ago.

Tony is a retired sociology professor from Philadelphia, not the sort of professional identity we normally associate with spellbinding stage presence. But there he was, Cardigan sweater and bald head, a blend of Mr. Rogers and Dick Vitale; at ease one moment and in your face the next; a thousand students in the palm of his hand.

For thirty years, Tony has been traveling the country promoting his brand of following Jesus. It is story after story, no doubt retold a thousand times, about life as a vocation, a calling away from the self-centered materialism of middle class American culture and into the hurts and hopelessness of the rest of the world.

One former student, driven by a dream of Christ-centered service, ended up a plastic surgeon in New York specializing in cosmetic surgery for rich women. “You sold out the dream,” Campolo told him at a chance meeting on a city street.

Another student, a veteran of Harvard Law Review and the Supreme Court, traded a promising career to serve as public defender in Montgomery, Alabama; it was his vocation in life. Campolo said to him, “You don’t know how good you are.”

“To be full of the Spirit,” Campolo said, “is to have your heart broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

Prayer was the launching pad for both his speech and his own pilgrimage years ago. As a young man, he stopped using prayer as a want list presented monologue-style to God. Prayer, for him, is lying in bed in the morning, allowing the grace to wash and cleanse the soul.

He supported his prayer thesis with that wonderful dialogue between CBS Newsman Dan Rather and Mother Teresa: “When you pray,” Dan asked, “what do you say to God? “When I pray,” she responded, “I don’t say anything; I listen.”

This caught Dan off guard; but he came again: “Well, when you pray, what does God say?” “God doesn’t say anything,” the good nun replied, “God listens, and if you don’t know what that means, I cannot explain it.”

Campolo’s message needed no explanation, only his intense, entertaining presentation: “Follow Jesus,” he said. “Turn your back on the accumulation of stuff and turn your life into a service to others.”

It was a wide range of illustrations that Campolo used to drive home his point. Pascal and Einstein, Haiti and Philadelphia, elevators and graduations, doctors, lawyers, beggars and bums.

Best of all was Salinger, as in J. D. Salinger who wrote The Catcher in the Rye. It was standard high school reading a generation ago, even though ministerial types roundly condemned it for its crude language and worldly scenes.

Remember when Holden Caulfield tells his sister what he wants to be? He sees himself with other children in a field of rye, running and playing. One by one they come to the edge of the cliff; I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye.

Be a catcher in the rye, Campolo said, redeeming this secular story and filling it with the grace of God. You can’t save all of the at-risk children of the world; but you can save some, and that is a noble vision and a worthy aspiration.

It was a radical call that Campolo thrust at us, altogether in the lineage of Francis of Assisi, Leo Tolstoy, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Of course, it sounds a lot like Jesus himself, who challenged his hearers to turn away from self interest, take up the cross of suffering and service, and follow Him.

When I was a teenager this was the invitation that stirred my soul and shaped my life. It was summarized in the chorus that defined my generation, “I have decided to follow Jesus.” As Campolo spoke, I sensed again and afresh that deep devotion to Jesus. When he directed us to close our eyes and raise our hands as a signal of renewed dedication, mine joined the hundreds waving toward the heavens.

Editor’s Postscript: This Journal is grateful to have Tony Campolo as a member of our Board of Directors—he exemplifies the combination of healthy evangelism and genuine social concern that Christian Ethics Today seeks to strengthen and support.

Updated Monday, February 07, 2005