He's that rarest of birds -- a left-wing Evangelical -- who served as President Bill Clinton's spiritual adviser during the dark days of the Monica Lewinsky crisis.

The Rev. Tony Campolo, an author, lecturer and currently associated pastor at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, will bring his message of compassion and social justice from an Evangelical perspective to the Eastern New Mexico University Theater at 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Portales News-Tribune reported.

"If we lose this generation of young people, we will lose them not because we have made Christianity too hard for them; we will lose them because we have made Christianity too easy for them," Campolo said in a phone interview. "They're looking for radical discipleship, not something lukewarm." 

Campolo was invited by a local task force chaired by the Rev. Brad Reeves, pastor of Kingswood United Methodist Church in Portales, the News-Tribune said. 

Campolo is the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE), which works to help "at-risk" youth in the United States and Canada and has helped establish several schools and universities, according to a Wikipedia profile of Campolo.

While the ordained Baptist minister and evangelist has aligned himself with the Democratic Party and several left-wing groups and causes, he has publicly opposed abortion and same-sex marriage, according to Wikipedia.

Our favorite Campolo moment, however, came during the funeral for U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, who was killed April 3, 1996 in a plane crash near Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Campolo was walking with his good friend, then-President Bill Clinton, either to or from the funeral, talking animatedly and laughing, when the preternaturally alert Clinton noticed a cameraman out of the corner of his eye.

Here, captured for all time through the miracle of YouTube, is the instantaneous transformation of Clinton into a somber mourner, brushing an invisible tear from as eye, while the Rev. Campolo goes on walking, talking and chuckling.

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