Follow the faith journey of Tony Campolo, one of the most influential figures in modern evangelical Christianity. 

Millions of Christians know Tony Campolo as a popular speaker, bestselling author, parachurch leader, pastor, and counselor to a US president. But few know his personal faith journey—how throughout his life, existential encounters and unexplored ideas compelled him to continually reexamine and reform his theology.  

Pilgrim: A Theological Memoir traces the evolution of Campolo’s theology as he matured as a believer, scholar, and evangelical leader who continually sought to engage thoughtfully with the sociocultural challenges of his time and encourage fellow believers to do the same. 

Below, you can view the final interview that Tony gave before his passing; you can also read an excerpt from Pilgrim. 

 

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Praise for Pilgrim

“I have every confidence that on Tony Campolo’s day of reckoning, the words ‘good and faithful servant’ will reverberate across the heavens. Pilgrim captures the wisdom, the wit, and the prophetic witness of one of our most consistent voices calling for faithfulness to the demands of the gospel.” —Randall Balmer, Dartmouth College 

“Whether you’re a longtime fan or just discovering Tony for the first time, you are in for a treat with this book, which is a gift to the church and to the world.” —Shane Claiborne, cofounder of Red Letter Christians 

 

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Tony Campolo’s Final Interview

In an August 2024 interview*, listen to Tony Campolo discuss a wide range of topics including how he would describe himself, his conservative theological upbringing, his parents’ different approaches to faith, his time at Eastern University, Christian nationalism, and much more.

*The questions and answers in this interview have been edited for clarity purposes.

 

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Excerpt from chapter 1, “One Pilgrim’s Journey”

For years I toyed with the idea of writing an autobiography, but this remained little more than an idea as long as I continued my time-consuming work of traveling and speaking. . . . When my work was finally stripped from me by a debilitating stroke that left me partially paralyzed, I finally had more than enough time to take a good look back at the past eighty-eight years of my life. 

I call this book a theological memoir because I have focused on events and challenges along the way that forced me to rethink how I conceived and lived out my faith. I began this process as a young person before I had even considered formulating a theology. I am still theologizing today, incorporating new insights into my faith as I reflect on aging, my mortality, and preparing to meet my Maker sometime soon. 

This kind of evaluation is something all of us do as we try to answer life’s big questions: 

Who am I? 

Where did I come from? 

Why am I here? 

What is the meaning of my life? 

Where am I going? 

I hope this book will not only show you how I navigated this theological journey but also help you reflect on the theological issues you have likely dealt with in your life. I believe every person is a theologian, not only the people who study or teach the subject in books or at seminary. 

Each one of us makes decisions and choices about what we believe about God, the Bible, Christ’s life, and his teaching. For many, these important decisions happen daily, often below the level of conscious awareness. 

And each one of us faces existential life situations that force us to stop, reconsider our assumptions and commitments, and articulate our beliefs in new ways that incorporate what we have learned along the way. 

That has certainly been the case with me as I was forced to figure out what I believed about various worldviews and movements that started pressing in on me as a teenager and as a young man, including the civil rights movement, the movement against the war in Vietnam, the sexual revolution, the women’s liberation movement, the LGBTQ movement, the pushback against consumerism, and Christian responses to social-justice needs, to name a few. 

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