An Evangelical Social Gospel?. Timothy L. Suttle
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gospel ceases to be good news to everyone. For instance, how would you view the American narrative of westward expansion if you were a Native American? Would you tell the story in the same way? Or would you tell a story of deep hurt, dispossession, the eradication of an entire people and their way of life by people who called themselves the children of God? There is a downside to individualism, a dark side.
The gospel demands that the Christian should be defined by the story of God more than any rival narrative. The narrative of individualism is one of the most powerful rival gods in American culture. It is espoused and celebrated by many American evangelicals, who seem unaware that it is often antithetical to the Christian story. Becoming a Christian entails switching narratives; moving away from the dominant narratives of the day and toward the narrative we find in the story of God. In our day, the switch is—at least in part—from the narrative of individualism to the narrative of love toward neighbor and enemy alike. Christians should not allow the prevailing wisdom of any given culture to dominate the story of God. If the culture teaches the philosophy of individualism, as ours most certainly does, it becomes necessary for the people of God to resist that philosophy. Not primarily through protests or legislation, but by embodying the great commandment to love God and love people. Only then do we stand as a living witness to the better way.
Jesus is essential to the gospel. Jesus is the gospel. The atonement won by Christ through his blood is essential to the gospel. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are all essential to the gospel. But individualism is not. In fact individualism distorts the gospel and renders it powerless in many situations.
The Gospel in Amsterdam
Take this situation for example: Reporter Anthony LoBaido spent time in Amsterdam’s red light district in 2001 reporting on the issue of sex trade. Often situated across the street from century-old churches, these modern brothels offer everything under the sun for “sex shoppers.” LoBaido tells of walking through one alley and staring into the cold dead eyes of a young prostitute who had been forced into the sex trade. On display in her cage, she was offered to the highest bidder while a group of British tourists walked by and poked fun at her expense. In that dank, dirty alley, after staring into the eyes of the girl in the cage, and hearing the taunting voices, LoBaido simply lost it. He went off on the taunting tourists. “These aren’t animals in a zoo,” he shouted. “This is a human tragedy. What’s wrong with you people? This is somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s mother,” but it made little difference.1
How will the gospel make a difference in the life of the girl in the cage in Amsterdam? To walk up to her and share the four spiritual laws and ask her to pray to accept Christ would be an act of incredible callousness. If the gospel is nothing more than “Jesus died for your sins so you can go to heaven when you die,” then it is not good news to her. And if the gospel isn’t good news for the girl hanging in a cage in Amsterdam, then it isn’t good news at all.2 The girl in the cage in Amsterdam doesn’t need to accept Jesus. She needs Jesus to come get her out of that cage. Our individualized gospel is not enough. It’s not enough for her and it’s not enough for you or me. The gospel of personal conversion is of no real help to that girl because it’s not the whole gospel.
If your temperature is already starting to rise, then this is probably going to boil you over. The gospel isn’t meant to address only our spiritual slavery to sin, nor is it only about how to “get into heaven when you die.” The gospel’s chief aim is much bigger and more far reaching than that. It concerns our real and present spiritual, physical, and social slavery to all kinds of things. It is not merely about the sweet by and by, but also the here and now.
For most of us, however, the individualized gospel of personal conversion is the only tool we’ve been handed. In fact, over the past few centuries many Western Christians, and nearly all American evangelicals, have slipped into a mode where in our behavior and sometimes our words we say something sort of like this: “Christianity is mostly concerned about your soul. It is about how you can have eternal life. Christianity is about your inner life, your spiritual needs. It’s not really that concerned with your body. It’s not really concerned about justice. It’s not really concerned with the well-being of the planet or physical things. Christianity is about how you can get into heaven when you die—it doesn’t bother about the physical needs of this world. This world is going to burn anyway. It’s just the place where you decide where you’ll spend eternity.”
Here’s the problem with that. The Bible tells a very different story. The Bible tells about a God who has always been concerned about all of life. God is most certainly concerned with your soul and your spiritual needs. But God is also concerned about your physical needs and emotional needs, your financial needs and legal needs, your cultural, relational, intellectual, and educational needs, and so on. And God is concerned about the well-being of the planet and about physical things, too. Jesus came not only to save discrete individual souls but to put all of those things into right relationship. God has always been concerned with the whole of creation in all of its interrelatedness.
Christians believe the good news was revealed most perfectly in Jesus Christ, who told us the only way to have all of our needs met was to have faith enough to join with God, as God meets the needs of other people and of the created order as well. Jesus said you will find your life by losing it, and you will lose your life if all you do is try to find it. If all you do is grasp for life, even eternal life, you will lose it all in the end. He told us to seek first the kingdom of God, the place where God reigns and rules as the sovereign of all life. As we seek first the kingdom of God through Christ, we are changed and transformed into agents of that very transformation—gospel people who are being healed and are healing others. God begins to heal our brokenness and we, in turn, learn how to participate in God’s mission to heal the brokenness of the world.
Together we learn how to live as gospel people who care for the poor and vulnerable among us. We learn how to love the alien and give them shelter and share our lives with them. We find ways to put an end to corrupt systems, like the ones which allow the girl to suffer in her cage in Amsterdam. We find strength for the day, and we find community and purpose. We find a personal relationship with Christ and with the people of God, too. We find pardon for our sins and the joy of holiness. We learn the most amazing, terrifying, and yet comforting thing we can learn: God has always been concerned about all of life. When that happens to us as persons and especially as communities, then all of life begins to come into right relationship with God. That is the good news . . . Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
A Helpful Conversation Partner
I don’t know if we realize it, but when we consider heartbreaking issues like sex slavery, or poverty, or racism, or economic injustice, we’re actually struggling with the problem of suffering. Suffering is everywhere, and it is inescapable. Much of our life’s time and energy will be spent trying to avoid, endure, and overcome suffering. One of the things which makes the Christian faith so incredible is this uncanny ability to find the presence of God in the midst suffering. Suffering is not always eliminated by God’s presence. In fact we would not want to eliminate all suffering, because it seems to be one of the only sure ways we humans change and grow. Yet, we believe suffering can somehow be redeemed through the presence of God. This is an important component of the good news. Jesus has the ability to redeem our suffering and open up the world to new possibilities of life and peace in the midst of suffering.
I once took a class at seminary in which we were asked to read eight or nine books by the most renowned theologians of the early twentieth century, a century marked by more human suffering than nearly any before it. One of the books I was assigned was by a pastor and theologian named Walter Rauschenbusch. When you are faced with a stack of required reading like that, you really want to know if every book will be worth your time, right? Most of the authors were people I’d heard of: Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr and the like. I was up for reading them, but seriously, Walter Rauschenbusch? I had never even heard of this guy. However, since it was required reading I figured I’d start with Rauschenbusch’s book just to get it out of the way and get on to the good stuff. The book was called A Theology for the Social Gospel.
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