The Social Gospel movement, part 3

Two propositions I gleaned from the Social Gospel

Proposition #1: You can be a bleeding-heart liberal, without being theologically liberal.

Let me explain.

When I say "bleeding-heart liberal," I don't mean you support homosexual marriages or abortion. I mean you can honestly care about the environment and global warning. You can care about prisoners' well-being. You can care about the poor and even be angry at those who oppress and take advantage, even if they are a corporation or government. You - yes you - can be wary of capitalism. You could, potentially, care about being kind to animals. And, like some bleeding-hearts, you might even think that War Is Not the Answer.

Personally I think you could even vote Democrat if you felt you had to.

I say all of this in spite of a lot of empirical evidence to the contrary, though. But based on reason and biblical truth alone, it certainly is possible. I really believe that. If you want proof that God (even the "Old Testament version") is a flaming (literally), socialist, bleeding-heart liberal, click here for a sampling of the biblical data.

Proposition #2: It's hard to be a bleeding-heart liberal without being theologically liberal.

Like I said, a lot of empirical evidence says that. Look at what happened to the Social Gospel movement.

What did happen? On the surface level, the answer is simply questionable or just plain bad theology. For instance, a lot of Social Gospel activists had a post-millennial eschatology. According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know), "That is they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort." Not only is practically no one post-millennialist today, but this is a very strange outlook on human effort and our sin nature. Nothing is ever going to be perfect or even close to perfect until this world passes away. Things will likely get worse before they get better. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight til the end. That is called integrity and perseverance and hope. Good theology is faith in God's power, not our own, to bring the kingdom of God. This is just one example of being motivated by skewed thinking.

In addition, they partnered with a lot of unbelievers to combat social justice. This is probably one of the best things Christians can do in (I'm guessing) 80% of such cases. But it can be dangerous if you care more about "the fight" than the One you are fighting for. (I hope there to be a blog post about this dichotomy in the future.) Some churches and Christians became ecumenical in beliefs and interests rather than simply in scope of opportunity. The church became just another social activist, another political figure.

In the term "social gospel" the head of the phrase is "gospel," of which there is one and only one. We can't afford to lose that identity. We should be interested in people and justice, but in the end, there is only one real, all-encompassing interest and that is God. God is the gospel.

Remember, Jesus was not the political, social, and economic revolutionary the Jews thought he would be. He was in a way, but not the way they wanted him. That's why the Jews by and large missed the kingdom. Don't miss it.