George Campbell

Editor’s Note: George Campbell is the executive director of Mecklenburg Ministries, which is housed in the facilities of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church on 7th Street, in sight of the big buildings in Uptown Charlotte. Raised in the Southern Baptist church, he is still a member of Myers Park Baptist Church, which recently left the Southern Baptist denomination over doctrinal issues. We recently sat down with Campbell to talk about the gulf that exists between liberal and conservative churches in areas of social ministry.


Warren Smith: What are you guys all about?

George Campbell: What we’re about should be defined more broadly than ministry to the poor. Mecklenburg Ministries is an interfaith organization that is an advocate for compassion and justice. That’s a broad mission. Our initial concerns had to do with housing. We helped found the Emergency Winter Shelter. We’re still the fiscal agent there. Most of our programs today center around interfaith acceptance and prejudice awareness – both for youth and adults. And we tackle community issues from a faith-based point of view.

We help promote things at the Great Aunt Stella Center, such as the "God and Guns" program. We had a program there with Tom Henry as one of the participants. That was our Spring Equinox Celebration, where we had people of different faiths talking about their calling and talking about what a "new beginning" would be from their point of view.

We have looked at young people taking their faith to school, what their faith meant to them and how they exhibited that at school. Just last night we did a "Stop The Hate" rally at The Great Aunt Stella Center.

So it would be unfair to say that we just minister to the homeless, although our connection with the Emergency Winter Shelter is certainly that.

WS: How would you describe the climate in Charlotte around the issues you just described?

GC: Oh, I think the climate in Charlotte is diverse, and getting more so every day. I would say, probably, that 50 years ago, 30 years ago, there would be very little disagreement in Charlotte around faith issues – with the exception of race, where I don’t think faith led us in the right direction until much later.

I would say that as Charlotte grows, it will find differences of opinion to be broader and more diverse.

WS: The evangelical community has had some apprehension of work in these areas. Some evangelicals believe that ministries like yours compromise biblical integrity or biblical truth, which makes them reluctant to be supportive of ministries like Mecklenburg Ministries.

GC: Right.

WS: On the other hand, ministries like yours look at evangelicals and say, well, what we’re doing is Gospel work, too, and if you’re not going to participate with us, what are you doing to promote justice? There is a gulf here. What would you say to conservatives who believe there is a compromise in biblical integrity in ministries like yours?

GC: I don’t think it is up to us to ask someone to compromise their idea of biblical truth. I think there are Christians in Mecklenburg Ministries who would see Christ and Christianity from a different viewpoint than the evangelical community and the conservative church. But it is not our role to criticize the conservative church.

We feel there is sufficient commonality between us – Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, B’ahai – all of us.

WS: How would you define that commonality?

GC: I think we all basically believe in the dignity of the individual, as created by God. We all believe that the individual has the right to live free of prejudice. Free from their own prejudice, for that matter. I know that we all believe in what we call "The Golden Rule."

When I left Myers Park Baptist Church, which is a liberal Baptist church, and went down to Princeville and worked with Southern Baptist men. We all had a mission and a purpose there, and what we believed about the Old Testament and the New Testament didn’t deter our purpose there. We were there to help fellow human beings who were in need.

I think if we can approach the diversity that is growing in Charlotte from that point of view, rather than how we individually interpret scripture and Jesus, then I think we will find enough commonality among us to do even greater work.

WS: I understand that perspective, but I think some are concerned that ultimately theology does matter, especially in faith-based ministry. If there is not some grounding in some objective truth, all the work is at best stop-gap, and at worst destructive or counter-productive to ultimate, eternal goals. Without some common understanding of truth, what are we ultimately accomplishing?

GC: Well, that’s a good question, but I’m not sure I can answer it on the level that you’re asking it. I do believe that a lot of what we do is stopgap. A lot of what we do is charity. But there is a place for that. We should have charitable hearts.

But what we really ought to be focused on is justice. I’m not sure that an argument between Christians over whether we should be evangelizing every day or not really helps us define justice. The justice I’m talking about is the Kingdom of God on earth. The justice I’m talking about is equal education opportunities. Creating and living in a society in which every individual, regardless of his birthright or place in society or income level or parents’ religious beliefs, still has the ability in our society to see that he is hampered in any way from reaching his fullest potentiality, not in material terms, but not necessarily in spiritual terms either. That he has just as good a shot at God’s goods as anyone else does.

I do believe that we do not have a shortage of things in the world, but we do have a shortage of systems that justly distribute things that God has given us. So I don’t know that whether we believe in the Resurrection, the Second Coming, whether we prefer John The Baptist to Jesus – which has been a battle, as you know, in the writing of the history of the Bible – makes all that much difference in looking at God’s will for us here on earth.

WS: On the other hand, there is a growing movement – some are calling it "compassionate conservatism" – that says that compassion is central, but theology does matter. That charity without accountability creates increased dependency, and robs human dignity.

GC: I don’t know what "compassionate conservatism" really means, but if it means what my heart tells me it means, then it’s a good thing. But I do believe even that is a stopgap.

Now, you can say that we have great opportunity in this country, and if we are compassionate to people we create dependency, but I don’t believe that. We have people who, because of our system, are on the margin every day, every night. They can’t afford housing. They can’t afford proper food. They can’t afford medical care. Even though they might have a job, the wage they earn is not sufficient to enjoy the fruits of God in this society. So I can understand how we might feel that a guy ought to get up, or a gal ought to get up and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with it and join the society, but there are prejudices that make it hard.

WS: Can you define some of these prejudices?

GC: For instance, I think an awful lot of us look at Latin Americans, Asians, African-Americans as different and not as good as we whites. We tend to make up interpretations of their behavior that fit our framework. I have a great education. College. Business. A lot of doors are open to me. Now, if I had all these advantages and I failed, and you gave me handouts for any length of time, you could create in me a continuing will to keep receiving these handouts.

But if I never had a chance at the full fruits of God’s gifts, then I think it is wrong for us to interpret that from our own privileged point of view. And we are privileged and powerful.

WS: How, then, ultimately, do we deal with this issue? You said that most of what we do is stopgap. Is that adequate? Why shouldn’t we be focused on more permanent solutions? And what should that permanent solution be? It seems that conservatives are focused on altering in significant ways the way the government deals with the poor, and what you are advocating is altering in significant ways the way corporations relate to the poor, to altering the capitalistic economy and the distribution systems that capitalism creates.

GC: Right. And that strikes to the very heart of people’s fears, and the structure of their world when you start talking about that. Jesus was charitable, without a doubt, but he was after justice. He was dealing in a system that was marginalizing people through urbanization and commercial growth. He was seeing people – just as we are today -- farming small plots of land losing that land through taxation from the church and from the Roman Empire.

WS: All right. But I’m still having trouble getting my arms around what you mean when you say justice, especially economic justice.

GC: I don’t know that any of this is possible, but let’s hope it is. Let’s say that I am a member of a minority and that I am born to an illiterate mother. My father is seldom at home, if ever. Because of economic reasons my mother and I move repeatedly through the school-age years. I’m never in any one school for any length of time. I’m always with different people. I’m always seen as an outsider. Always seen as coming from a low-income family. A single-parent home. Then somehow we need to find a way in our system and to the benefit of our system, to the peace of our system, to bring me into the mainstream. Not that I get to go to private schools or get a membership in the country club, but that I get a shot at full participation in our society.

The power structure in Charlotte has to open its doors to me as a full member of society. That’s hard to do.

WS: And it is not currently the case?

GC: It is not currently the case.

And it is something that the church struggles for. If we’re Christians, struggling for that justice is one of our mandates. Some of us do it more than others, and some of us do it in different ways.

WS: As a general principle, how has the evangelical church done with these issues?

GC: The evangelical church has been very concerned about his fellow man. The evangelical church has had its prejudices, though, and has fallen short of the mark, as all churches have.

WS: Can you be specific?

GC: There was an evangelical church in the 40s and 50s, when blacks came back from the War and had no chance at the goods of this society. There was an evangelical church in the 60s when people were marching for equality. There is an evangelical church today when we see hate crimes in Charlotte-Mecklenburg rearing its ugly head.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the evangelical church is the source of that. But I think the evangelical church and every other church, until it gets up in arms about mistreatment of people, we’re falling short.

WS: Hate crimes in Charlotte? You see that as a big issue in Charlotte?

GC: Well, I don’t see that as the biggest issue, but I’m white. If I were an African-American, and a cross was burned in the yard next to my home, that might be the biggest issue in my mind at the moment.

WS: But is that happening in Charlotte?

GC: Well, there has been a cross-burning recently, in Gastonia. If we can stamp that out, maybe there would be some justice.

WS: Some of what you are talking about is a bit off-putting to evangelicals because, for one thing, when they hear you talk about hate crimes – or, for that matter, guns, as you did in the "God and Guns" forum – that is viewed as an infringement of liberty. Or, in the case of hate crimes, what if I believe that homosexuality is morally wrong, not to mention that homosexual behavior is a felony in North Carolina? There is some concern that if I have the temerity to actually say that, I will be viewed as being guilty of a hate crime. That seems to be its own kind of tyranny.

GC: No, I don’t think so. For one thing, I think there is clear room in the Bible regarding whether certain behaviors are morally wrong.

WS: Thou shalt not murder is pretty unambiguous. To say that the Bible is ambiguous on moral teaching is just wrong. Some areas of scripture are ambiguous, but many areas are not. There is a concern among evangelicals that we are throwing out moral law that has served man well, and is believed not just by Christians, but by Jews and adherents to many of the religions you cited earlier, and for what purpose?

GC: I don’t think any Christian should view a differing interpretation of the right to bear arms, for example, as a threat. We had people on all sides of that debate. We had ministers on both sides.

WS: I remember Jim Howell from Davidson United Methodist Church.

GC: He was pretty strongly against….

WS: Who was the pro-gun minister?

GC: I don’t know that I would say pro-gun, but we did have a minister there who said it was a right. But it is hard to argue that God tells us we should own a gun or not own a gun. We should keep that on constitutional grounds.

But what we try to do in forums like that is to bring people together with as diverse a view as possible. And they’re not heatedly debated, but rationally debated. Then we can see that, "you know, the other side is not all that bad."

I’ve been here nine months, and it has been very enlightening to me to get to know some African-American Muslims. They’re very strong in their faith. Their faith is very particular in how it calls them to live. Five years ago, I would have said to heck with them.

WS: You come from a Southern Baptist background.

GC: Well, I grew up at First Baptist in High Point, and First Presbyterian in High Point at the same time. I’m a member of Myers Park Baptist Church.

WS: Then, at least in your spiritual heritage, the idea of evangelism is key, or at least was key to both the Presbyterian church and the Baptist church in the 50s and 60s. They sang hymns of invitation and asked people to pray to receive Jesus in the churches of your youth.

GC: Oh, I was saved three times a year for four years in high school. But I don’t know if that means I’m saved or not.

WS: Well, you tell me. Are you saved?

GC: As far as I’m concerned, I am. I’m struggling with my relationship and understanding of God. As far as I’m concerned I’m saved. Though a lot of people might say probably not.