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Huffington Post...
An Evangelical Social
Gospel?
By Tim Suttle
05/28/11
Evangelical Christians are committed to something called the gospel.
It’s central to everything we do. The word gospel itself means “good
news,” and this good news is all about how Jesus came into this dark
and broken world to make a way back to God. Over the past few centuries
the evangelical version of the gospel has changed and is now something
quite different than ever before. The gospel has become overly
individualized and reduced to a way of managing the guilt of our own
personal sins. This abridged gospel typically goes something like this:
If you admit you are sinful, admit Jesus is God, believe he died for
your sins, and ask him into your heart, then you will go to heaven when
you die. Although this is preached in most evangelical churches, this
gospel is actually not all that faithful to our scriptures or church
history. Worst of all, it holds few if any moral or ethical
implications for our lives.
Here’s the problem as clearly as I can state it. For the past few
centuries, individualistic conceptions of the gospel have championed
some truly good things, chief among them being the conviction that
human beings have the capacity to relate to God -- we can know God and
relate to God personally. But an over-emphasis on personal faith has
distorted the gospel. The good news has been reduced to a message about
how to get into heaven when you die. Individualism has truncated our
gospel, and left us blind to the obvious social message of Jesus.
The gospel has a personal dimension which is about how each person
relates to God -- and this is a critical piece. It also has a corporate
dimension which is about how humanity as a whole relates to God and to
each other -- and this is a critical piece as well. The personal and
corporate dimensions of the gospel must be held together. In American
evangelicalism we have the personal covered, but we are lacking in our
corporate understanding of the good news. That we are so lacking, I
believe, robs the gospel of its impact on our society because the nexus
of the personal and corporate is where all the power lies.
The iconic preacher Billy Graham is a representative of the personal
gospel. When he preached, Graham would talk about personal sin -- the
brokenness that lives inside all of us keeping us from knowing God and
experiencing peace. Graham preached about how Jesus wanted to heal each
one of us personally and lead us into a better way of life. Graham
preached the gospel of personal salvation night after night to packed
houses. And the people would sing the gospel hymn “Just As I Am” over
and over.
The equally iconic Martin Luther King Jr. is a representative of the
social gospel. When he preached, King would talk about social sin --
the brokenness that lives inside our social systems, keeping us from
knowing God and experiencing peace and justice. King would invite
people to embrace the kind of faith in Jesus Christ which would
fundamentally change our approach to one another. King said Jesus
wanted to heal not only each person, but our culture as well. He taught
that Jesus wanted to lead us into a better way of life not only as
individuals, but as a society. King preached the gospel of social
salvation night after night to packed houses. And the people would sing
the gospel hymn “We Shall Overcome,” over and over.
Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. were both evangelical
Christians. They both preached a gospel which was incomplete without
the other. Graham’s message needs King’s message and vice versa. The
two messages are inexorably linked like two sides of the same coin. If
the gospel doesn’t include both the personal and corporate dimension of
the Christian faith, then it is something very less that the true
gospel -- and it will never change the world. Jesus taught that love
toward our fellow human beings -- even our enemies -- is the path to
God. This is not some ancillary teaching which can be tacked onto the
gospel. This is the gospel he preached. You cannot love God if you do
not love your neighbor (1 Jn. 4). This is how we see God. This is how
we are blessed. This is how we inherit the earth. As evangelicals we
need to recognize God’s desire is actually not for a bunch of
individuals who have been saved, but for a new community -- a new
humanity. From a Christian perspective we will never experience this
unless we begin to embrace the corporate nature of the gospel.
Read it at the Huffington Post
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