The Social Gospel is Not Our Enemy

You all know about the "Social Gospel." Some preach it heartily and others despise it. One who might have despised it was Paul who wrote,

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! (Gal 1:6-9)

Paul considered "another gospel" a fiction and worthy of being accursed. So how are we to think about the "Social Gospel"?

First, of course, we need to determine just what it is. According to Wikipedia, it revolves around "social justice" where economic inequality, poverty, crime, racism, etc. are addressed using Christian ethics. It originated in the idea that this was a means to achieving the kingdom of God (but I'd guess very few modern advocates know or think that). Some point to Jesus's words in the synagogue when He read from Isaiah (Isa 61:1; Isa 42:7) and proclaimed, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:17-21). The "good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18; Isa 61:1) is "the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:19) -- freedom for captives, sight to the blind, liberty for the oppressed. Now, if by "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" Jesus meant inequality, poverty, captivity, blindness, etc. were ending, then He goofed. It hasn't ended yet. But the Social Gospel, in its basic form, is precisely what every follower of Christ is commanded -- Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Scripture commands believers to be kind to the poor (Prov 19:17; Prov 27:27). Paul told Timothy to urge the rich to be generous to the poor (1 Tim 6:18). The psalmist says that God is personally concerned about the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, the "bowed down," etc. (Psa 146:7-9). These concerns ought, then, to be ours, too. The Social Gospel as far as that goes, then, is a good thing.

The problem arises when the Social Gospel replaces the Gospel of Christ. We are commanded to take care of people in need, but we are specifically commanded to tell others that Christ died for our sin. The Gospel of Christ "of first importance" is "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve" (1 Cor 15:3-5). A "gospel" that ignores or even contradicts this Gospel is Paul's "other gospel" that is not a gospel at all.

The "Social Gospel," then, carries a two-edged danger to genuine Christians. On one edge, there is the disdain we hold for a false gospel that speaks only of good works for the needy, a disdain that causes us to ignore the very real need to care for the needy. That this is so prevalent among believers -- ignoring the needy -- is a matter of shame for us, not orthodoxy. On the other edge, however, this "Social Gospel" runs the risk of replacing the real Gospel, the good news that Christ died for our sins and rose again. The good news that there is salvation in Him and in no other. The good news that exceeds this world and its comforts. We err, then, when we reject the need to care for our fellow human beings and we err when we replace the Gospel of Christ with a "Social Gospel" that isn't, actually the real Gospel. Paul considered the latter worthy of damnation. Let's make neither mistake.