Joyful Humanism with Bart Campolo

How did a popular evangelical pastor become a humanist speaker and writer? How do students react to a humanist chaplain on campus? Today’s podcast episode with Bart Campolo addresses those questions.

Bart Campolo is a humanist speaker and writer who was an evangelical pastor before transitioning from Christianity to secular humanism. He was the first humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. Campolo currently serves as a leader and therapist of a humanist fellowship called Caravan in Cincinnati, Ohio, and hosts a podcast called Humanize Me. He has written several books, including Kingdom Works: True Stories of God and His People in Inner City America and Things We Wish We Had Said and Why I Left, Why I Stayed, which he co-wrote with his father, Tony Campolo, a sociologist, pastor and proponent of progressive thought and reform within the evangelical community.

Listen to the episode to hear how Campolo’s spiritual journey brought him to secular humanism, how he was received as a humanist chaplain and what it was like to dramatically alter his belief system with a prominent pastor for a father.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

Campolo’s gradual transition from Christianity to secular humanism
The definition of humanism
Campolo’s humanist beliefs
His three decades as an inner-city minister
How his father, a noted evangelical pastor, reacted to his change in beliefs
Campolo’s current work as a therapist and leader of Caravan, a humanist fellowship
How he was received as a humanist chaplain on a university campus
Why Christians see joyful humanists as threatening
One of Campolo's spiritual role models

Book Referenced by Campolo: