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: 

• The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought by Susan Jacoby

Related Links:

The Incarcerated Christian

The Incarcerated Christian on Instagram

The Incarcerated Christian on TikTok

The Incarcerated Christian on Twitter

Bart Campolo website

Bart on Twitter

Bart on Facebook

Annalise by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/56178 Ft: Kara Square