Marriage Quote by Tony Campolo

Campolo is doing a classic evangelical two-step: affirm the primacy of religious authority while sounding like a civic pluralist. The line lands because it takes a live wire issue (marriage) and reroutes it through a seemingly modest claim about jurisdiction. “Blessed of God” is the tell. It’s not just a theological phrase; it’s a boundary marker. By rooting legitimacy in congregational discernment, he shifts the argument away from rights and toward recognition, away from “Who can marry?” to “Who gets to call it holy?”

The “local congregation” framing is strategic. It evokes decentralization, pastoral conscience, and the American romance with small-scale democracy. It also quietly insulates the church from external pressure: if each congregation decides, no single denomination has to own the fallout. That’s a shield against both state mandates and intra-church conflict, especially in debates over same-sex marriage where national politics and local pews often collide.

Then comes the sharper subtext: “it shouldn’t be up to the government” is less a separation-of-church-and-state slogan than a bid to narrow what counts as government business. Campolo isn’t necessarily arguing that civil marriage should disappear; he’s trying to prevent the state’s definition from coercing religious participation or redefining religious language. The rhetorical trick is to cast government restraint as freedom, even though the government’s role in marriage has always been about contracts, benefits, and public status. He’s asking for a dual-track legitimacy: Caesar can file the paperwork, but only the church can confer the aura.