On this edition of the Evangelist Podcast, we're thinking about the social gospel.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Sprigger.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the slow catheter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well done. Well done, everybody. Um They've got 45 seconds into the podcast, and already they're being congratulated for persevering. Many because this is episode 96. 96. What should we do for a hundred? What anniversary is that? I don't know. Titanium. It's plutonium.
SPEAKER_02I don't think many people have an anniversary of it. Yeah, probably not. Anyway. Will the Queen write to us? We could interview her on the case. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So what exactly do you hope to do with your Christmas message? With your Christmas message. Oh man. We can just sit and learn from her. She yeah, she's a good evangelist. You ought to do that at Christmas.
SPEAKER_02Do a three-minute live Hello. Hiya PopTuck. Google Hangout or something. Yeah. Ten past three. I think she's more interface.
SPEAKER_01Alright.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say Snapchat, but already Glenn, we've completely lost.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So uh we've been looking at the uh Cinnamon Trust Faith Action Audit, which basically is a uh a survey of all the Christian work that's um or and and other faith.
SPEAKER_01Other faith communities. About five percent of of what goes on is sort of other faith communities, ninety-five percent of it is done by Christians.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we were looking at this last time, lots of figures, quite amazing figures, really. Yeah. Um and we we talked about that briefly. But also we want to look this time perhaps a bit more theologically, if you like, or how th the idea of social action came about and sort of uh historically we we think of certain names of of people in the past, you know, Shaftesbury and everyone that were involved in it. Yeah. Um so I think I mean we've always had a social impact, haven't we?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well certainly evangelicalism, you know, you look at sort of the foundations of evangelicalism and and people sort of list activism as as something that's that's really at the heart of of what evangelicals have always been about. And I think historically that's that's certainly true. We've always had this social impact. Um you think of the evangelical revivals of the eighteenth century, and you think of Wesley and Whitfield and and their preaching and and how that then overflowed into Sunday schools and then into you know workers' rights and poor laws and abolition of slavery and all this sort of stuff that that actually was birthed in revivals, was birthed in a lot of preaching. Tens of thousands of sermons from Wesley, tens of thousands of sermons from Whitfield, um people spiritually transformed, and you know, historians look back and and ask, well, why did France go through revolution and and Britain didn't? And and many will say, well, because they had this spiritual revolution, you know, Britain was really lost morally, spiritually, economically at the beginning of the seventeenth c beginning of the eighteenth century. You know, what happened? Well, preachers is what happened. And the this evangelical awakening and revival um had massive social impact. So you think about that, or you think about the Welsh revivals, uh end of the uh nineteenth, beginning of the twentieth centuries, and again, you know, you hear about whole communities being transformed and you know the stories of the of the pit donkey who no longer, you know, responds to the swear, you know, no no no longer responds to the the miners because the miners used to be swearing and now they're not swearing anymore. So that's and you hear about you know police stations having to shut because there's just no crime anymore. Pubs shutting because there's no one drinking anymore. Um so historically, evangelicals have had massive social impact. But it's interesting as you tell those stories, what's been at the forefront of that impact? It hasn't been people lobbying government. It hasn't begun with a whole lot of coordinated social action. It's begun with prayer and preaching. It's begun with revival, it's begun on on a proclamation footing. Um so yes, evangelicalism has always had an association with activism, but we need to put, you know, not the cart in front of the horse, I think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um I mean at the same time we've got uh evangelicals reacting in the other way to the term social gospel. Yeah. You know, we m we mustn't do that, that's social gospel. Yeah, yeah. What what exactly is that and what why don't people like it?
SPEAKER_01Well, social gospel was kind of um a term I think uh Walter Rochenbusch um was the the first one to sort of coin the phrase and he wrote books about the social gospel, and he was he was very much saying, um, you know, in days gone by we might have thought about our problem is a vertical problem with gods, and you just sort yourself out with gods and you go off and you live a thoroughly selfish life from then on because you and God are mates now and off you run, and and he was very much saying, Well, no, actually, there is this massive horizontal dimension to the gospel that God you know confronts us in Christ and and gives us Christ, and then by the Spirit we take him out to the to the the nations, and and that's true, and that's that's good and right, but he basically recast the gospel as that kind of approach out to the world. Um and and so for him the kingdom of God was, and I quote, a reconstruction of society on a Christian basis. So that that really mission work was a political work of making the world a nicer place. Um and trying to make the lion lie down with the lamb. Yes. Sit still, sit still, stay. That's a good way of putting it because you know until the renewal of all things that that ain't gonna happen, is it? Um and so yeah, he he very much sort of said, you know, in the olden days we were about the saved soul, and now we are about the kingdom of God, and we're about transforming the life uh our life on earth into the harmony of heaven. Um and so he got quite a following and and the the social gospel became very popular. Uh he died in 1918. And uh and you know, some of the more influential works on the social gospel were written just before the first world war. And and essentially two world wars kind of decimated our our sense of optimism that we could make the lion lie down with a lamb. You know, when you've seen the the whole of the world kind of torn apart by war, you start to doubt our abilities to politically solve things. And and so that was in one sense, that was sort of the death of the social gospel, but then it kind of got resurrected after World War II. Um there's massive ecumenical movements. Um people want to make peace, don't they, after war and people want to make peace between denominations and and so how how do you bring unity between Christians who have quite different understandings of the gospel, really? And and basically the World Council of Churches came together and and started saying things like um in uh the Uppsala report of 1968, they they said humanization is the goal of mission. They said, in days of yore, the goal of God's redemptive work might have been described in terms of man turning towards gods, and the the fundamental question was that of the true God. I'm quoting here from the Uppsala report. But now the purpose of mission was Christianization, bringing man to God through Christ and his church. But they said today the fundamental question is much more that of true man, and the dominant concern of the missionary congregation must therefore be to point to the humanity in Christ as the goal of mission. And that sort of set people on a on a trajectory. In 1973, again the World Council of Churches made this statement at a conference in Bangkok. They said salvation is the peace of the people of Vietnam, independence in Angola, justice and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. That's what salvation is. So that that kind of is is the social gospel, and most evangelicals read that and go, no nonsense. Um in fact, pretty much all evangelicals read that and go nonsense. But then in 1974, there was the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization. Now remember that title, it's a Congress on World Evangelization. And um uh John Stott presented there a kind of a case for mission that was not simply proclamation. And it's been very, very influential. The last forty years of evangelicalism have been incredibly affected by John Stott and and his plea in nineteen seventy-four that mission is he he said to identify with others as Christ identified with us and to serve as he gave himself in self the service for others. And so in the the Lazanne Congress, the the the uh the covenant that came out of that, Article five of the Lazanne Covenant says this, and it's it's been so important in shaping evangelicalism, it says uh although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation. So he's he's saying you know, social action is not evangelism, it's not. Nevertheless, we affirm that evangelism and sociopolitical involvement are both part of our Christian duty. And so then what we've got is instead of making disciples evangelism, instead of that being the Great Commission under which everything else happens, what John Stott is arguing for is we've got a Christian duty that is broader than evangelism, and that is the mission of the church. It's evangelism and sociopolitical involvement are both part of our Christian duty, both part of the mission of the Church. Now, following that trajectory in 1982, Lausanne um the Committee for World Evangelization said this in addition to worldwide evangelism, the people of God should become deeply involved in relief, aid development, and the quest for justice and peace. So at this point we're broadening things out, and remember this is the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. And they're saying, well, evangelism is one thing, and at the same time we need to be uh as deeply involved in relief, aid, development, and the quest for justice and peace. Now I've got questions about that, and we can unpack them over the over the course of of the next few episodes. But the reason why they wanted to say that, that that social action is sort of on a par with evangelization, um they they gave three reasons for it in 1982. They said firstly, um they said social action is the consequence of the gospel. The gospel bears fruit in social action. And I agree one hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely it does. Then they gave two other reasons why social action should be um uh on the same footing as part of the mission of the church. The second reason is um they said social activity is a bridge to evangelism. And I can kind of wear that. Yeah, social activity is a bridge to evangelism. So yeah, let's let's love people before, during and after sharing the gospel, absolutely. But thirdly, they said social activity accompanies evangelism as its partner. They are like the two blades of a pair of scissors or the two wings of a bird, as they were in the public ministry of Jesus. At that stage I've got I think I've got a problem. Two wings of a bird. So the bird can't fly if it's just or the the scissors can't cut if it's just evangelism, or if it's just social action. But put them together and evangelism plus social action equals the mission of the church. And I've got I've got problems with that. Um I don't think that is the way to coordinate mission and evangelism.
SPEAKER_02But that you're not saying that they're they're not both together. It's just that you're saying that they're not Side by side. Side by side.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because they you can have the problem of oh okay, on the one hand, I'll pay for a well to get dug in Africa, and on the other hand, I will support Gideons, you know? That's yeah. I don't think that's that's the kind of the the way to think about it. And and part of the problem is there's such a proliferation of parachurch organizations within evangelicalism that things do become uncoordinated like that. And so you feel like, well, let's give this much to to these set of organisations and this much to these set of organisations. If mission was happening through church, it would be far more organic, wouldn't it? Because you would support this church that is in a poor part of the world or a poor neighbourhood. Um and of course, as they seek to proclaim Christ, which is the mission of the church, of course they're serving the poor, of course they're they're bearing one another's burdens and and helping one another.
SPEAKER_02Um so sort of uh not side by side but one that leads to another. So like a flow rather than a than a balance.
SPEAKER_01Oh exactly. It's a flow not a balance. Let's rename the episode. We want we want flow not balance. Um yeah, I th I I think that's exactly right. Um in the same way that we all know uh uh we don't balance our good deeds and our faith in Christ in order to get saved.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But we but we still do good deeds. Good works come out of They flow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They flow, you don't balance it's like that's it.
SPEAKER_02That's it. Yeah. Well we better we better go on to to this next time and sort of have a look perhaps about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that was the history of where we've gotten up to in terms of uh evangelicals and and social action. We'll think more about the theology of mission um that might help us think it through.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Good. So if you have a comment about the show this week, you can go to um speaklife.org.uk slash tep97 and we'll perhaps put uh a little bit of a summary of the read out of the yeah. That would be good to put actually on the uh on the post if anyone wants to go through that. Um we'll also have the links on there to share the podcast and uh perhaps a link to a a couple of papers I've written on this as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02Okay. We'll leave it there. See you next time. See ya.