The Social Responsibility of Christians

We fundies in our insular little blog world have had a bit of discussion regarding social responsibility recently. You can catch some of the discussion at My Two Cents, and additional posts on Pensees and Paleoevangelical.

I think that perhaps the argument we are having among ourselves is somewhat affected by not carefully defining terms. When I say "social action", does it mean the same thing as Bob Bixby means? I am not altogether sure that it does.

In thinking about this, I did a little skimming in The Fundamentals this evening. There might be some oblique references to a social agenda of some kind in the chapters on missions, though they were not explicit enough to warrant a quote. Other than those chapters, I cannot find much reference to the issue in that source. I think I'll have to do some digging amongst the older fundies writings to see if they address such issues at all.

The next thing I did was to look up the Wikipedia entry on the Social Gospel. Here is their definition:

The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Social Gospel principles continue to inspire newer movements such as Christians Against Poverty. The movement applies Christian principles to social problems, especially poverty, liquor, drugs, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, poor schools, and the danger of war. Theologically, the Social Gospel leaders were overwhelmingly post-millennialist. That is they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. For the most part, they rejected pre-millennialist theology (which was predominant in the Southern United States), according to which the Second Coming of Christ was imminent, and Christians should devote their energies to preparing for it rather than addressing the issue of social evils. Their millennial views are very similar to those shared by Christian Reconstructionists, except that Social Gospel leaders are predominently liberal politically and religiously (in contrast to the Reconstructionists, who tend to hold politically liberatarian and religiously fundamentalist views).

The Canadian Encyclopedia (an effort by a noted Canadian socialist) has this entry:

The Social Gospel is an attempt to apply Christianity to the collective ills of an industrializing society, and was a major force in Canadian religious, social and political life from the 1890s through the 1930s. It drew its unusual strength from the remarkable expansion of Protestant, especially EVANGELICAL, churches in the latter part of the 19th century. For several decades the prevalent expression of evangelical nationalism, the Social Gospel was equally a secularizing force in its readiness to adopt such contemporary ideas as liberal progressivism, reform Darwinism, biblical criticism and philosophical idealism as vehicles for its message of social salvation. It developed, however, a distinctive spirituality elevating social involvement to a religious significance expressed in prayers, hymns, poems and novels of "social awakening." Its central belief was that God was at work in social change, creating moral order and social justice. It held an optimistic view of human nature and entertained high prospects for social reform. Leaders reworked such traditional Christian doctrines as sin, atonement, salvation and the Kingdom of God to emphasize a social content relevant to an increasingly collective society.

Well, I could quote more sites, but you can do the Google search yourself. These are probably already too long! And perhaps they are not precise enough...

But just a few thoughts on this:

1. The Social Gospel had its impetus from socialism which found a ready and willing market for its ideas in churches that were dispensing with orthodoxy and embracing religious liberalism.
2. The Social Gospel, as I understand it, became a substitute for the real Gospel in the 'ministries' of the mainline 'churches'. They saw the church's mission to champion the cause of the working man, especially against the evils of capitalism.
3. In Canada, this found its expression in the politics of Tommy Douglas and the CCF political party, later the NDP (New Democratic Party, which I like to say is neither new nor democratic and they are such a bunch of sourpusses, it isn't much of a party, either.) These are the folks that brought us universal health care. [A great system as long as you don't get sick.]
   
4. The problem with the social action of the Social Gospelers is that in general they have succeeded only in perpetuating the problems rather than empowering the individuals they are supposed to help. We see this expressed in all kinds of ways in the liberal welfare state, where the mainline churches have often joined hands with secular socialists to achieve social ends.

Since the Social Gospel is inextricably linked with religious liberalism on the one hand, and socialism on the other, I can understand why fundamentalists have resisted any support of its aims in any way.

In the new-evangelical compromise of the 1950s, one of the pillars of New Evangelicalism was to change the approach of the evangelical church to social problems.

"Third, Ockenga also issued a ‘summons to social involvement’ and a ‘new emphasis upon the application of the gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas of life.’"
Mark Sidwell, The Dividing Line, p. 117-118

Well, given the history of the relationship between Fundamentalists and the (New) Evangelicals, it isn't hard to see why fundamentalists have tended to resist this point of view as well.

Some are arguing today that Fundamentalists have separated themselves out from any social involvement, that they have gone too far. Yet others will point out that Fundamentalists have run Rescue Missions, Crisis Pregnancy Centres, homes for drug-addicted teens and adults, schools for the handicapped, and many other efforts devoted to meeting social needs, with a gospel-centered approach. (By gospel-centered, I mean that when we engage in such activities, our goal is to reach the inner man with the gospel and to help with the particular social problems individuals might have, and not the other way around.)

In fact I believe that the charge against Fundamentalism is baseless. Fundamentalists may not have the numbers or the resources (overall) that other larger Christian groups have, but their efforts do exist and are attempting to impact their communities for good.

In general, there are some things that I would consider acceptable social action, and others that I wouldn't endorse. These are my opinions only, I am not coming to hard and fast dogmatic conclusions.

• Activities that promote the ideas of socialism and leftist political agendas are unacceptable.
• Activities that primarily involve the handout of cash or some sort of direct or indirect financial assistance to poverty stricken people without an incentive for personal initiative is not acceptable. "A hand up, not a hand out" as they say.
• A philosophy of social action that exalts the social action as the end rather than a means is unacceptable. We don't do good to feel good, we do good to genuinely help.
• Disaster relief and emergency aid are one thing, ongoing welfare is another.
• Churches and Christian individuals should be most involved in efforts that reach men at their deepest points of need. Although I generally don't think the church has a ministry responsibility for social action, I don't have a problem with churches being involved in gospel-centered mission works such as I mentioned earlier.

Well, those are just a few thoughts for today. The whole topic is rather large and impossible to write a comprehensive philosophy without a great deal of study. Since we are having this conversation rather consistently, I suggest that someone is going to have to do some heavy lifting in the study of this topic to help settle the questions that keep coming up.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Unto You is Born This Day

Tonight is Christmas in our church. We are beginning our study of the harmonized New Testament, reading through the NT chronologically for about 7 or 8 months. We are harmonizing the Synoptics which will take us 8 and a half weeks. Tonight we begin.

I preached a message entitled, Unto You is Born This Day. The message encompasses the whole of the Christmas story. By my calculations, this is 5.66% of the Gospels. (That would be just over 1/20th, for the fractionally minded.) There is really no way to adequately deal with the content of the Incarnation in one message.

I remember Michael Barrett teaching us about the 'Immanuel concept' a quarter of a century ago. There really is no greater story. Every other religious guru of history has told us the way to find enlightenment and escape sin is "be like me". This Messiah became us. He became sin for us. He humiliated himself for the purpose of enabling our escape from ourselves. What grace.

We had no planned songs tonight, I just had our folks pick favorites, with this stipulation, they had to be Christmas songs. The Christian worship of the Incarnation is precious to me. We sang Joy to the World first, picked by one of our dear old saints. She is usually first on favorites, unless we cheat and don't tell her we're asking for favorites until after the first pick is in. "Let earth receiver her King!" What a hymn! We sang O Holy Night; Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne; The Birthday of a King; O Come, O Come, Emmanuel; Infant Holy, Infant Lowly; and closed with O Little Town of Bethlehem.

The proposition for the message was this: Only one kind of Saviour can make you better than what you are, the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

He is the One all men need to follow.

The notes are posted here.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Bonding with the wonders of our own mind

I read a little paragraph in Stein today that stirred me up. It reminded me of something I have often said about pet doctrines. Here is Stein:

On numerous occasions, however, passages are difficult to understand not so much because of the text itself, but because of the popular and erroneous interpretations associated with it. Rather than modify or give up these precious interpretations, we prefer to force the text to fit them. In actuality, however, no biblical text can be forced to fit an interpretation. The text has meant, means, and will always mean exactly what the author consciously willed it to say. As a result we can never force a text to mean what the author did not mean. It means today what the author meant when he wrote it. And this cannot be changed. We can, however, consciously or, more often than not, unconsciously misinterpret the text to fit our own views, but in so doing we do not change the meaning of the text but only place on it an alien meaning.

Robert H. Stein, Difficult Passages in the Epistles, p. 47.

My theory is that we have a lust for our own thoughts. When we birth them, we look them in the eyes, we coddle them, we coo to them, we bond with them. The more novel, cute, and unique our thoughts, the more they delight us. So pet doctrines are birthed and brought into the world.

The only thing that is worse is when we grow so fond of our intellectual offspring that we simply must show them off to all. What is even better is when "the great scholar", Dr. HuffnPuff, says something similar to us, or (praise be to God) he agrees with us. What a wonder our thought-child is then!

What dreariness it is to discipline our minds to think God's thoughts after Him! Or...

What safety and blessing there is in excising from our hearts the delight for novelty and simply learning to delight only in Him and in His Word.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

P. S. I was so glad to see Dr. Stein agreed with me. He is making great progress, don't you think?

August 27 Sermon Summaries

Chris Anderson got me started a few months back contributing to Sermon Summaries on his blog. I enjoy thinking through them again, so I am going to post a synopsis here. (Chris must be busy since he hasn't called for the summaries on his blog today.)

In the Worship Service, we began our look through the New Testament (see previous post). I preached a message entitled "The Revelation of Jesus Christ". This is the title of our entire series. I did a survey of the New Testament, beginning in Mk 1.1, covering the gospels, Acts, epistles and Revelation in order to show that the NT is The Revelation of Jesus Christ from start to finish. It is "the unfolding of the life, work, words, acts, mind and coming again of Jesus Christ." This revelation is the Gospel, the Good News, which comes to every man: There is a man who is the Son of God, the saviour of the world. My proposition was this: The New Testament is your mandate for life change. You should stake your life on it.

I have posted the outline for the message here, I am planning to post each message in this series in the same place if you care to have a look. I am using my personal web space provided by my ISP, so far I have room. I am hoping later this fall to transfer this to a larger server.

During our Bible Study Hour, I preached on "The Importance of Faithful Church Attendance" from Heb 10. I pointed out that this is not a command, but an exhortation based on the access we have to the Holy of holies through our great High Priest. As an exhortation, it is addressed to the heart, as opposed to the will, it is meant to be a delight, not a duty. It's motivation is not what good it will do for me, but what good I can do for others, and especially what I owe God for His great good to me.

In the afternoon, we finished up Malachi with a message on Mal 4, "Behold, the Day is Coming". Proposition: The only way to be prepared against the day that is coming is to know and heed God’s word. I pointed out the two outcomes of that day, the outcome of the day coming as a burning oven or the outcome of the Sun of righteousness rising with healing in his wings. On the second outcome, those who fear the Lord are told they will be like calves, leaping out of their stalls and treading on the ashes of the wicked. I worked through Dan 9.26-27, Rev 11, 12 and 19 to show how that last is likely to be literally true. Then we turned to the admonitions: Remember Moses, Consider Elijah who is to come. And last Malachi closes with a warning, 'lest I come and smite the earth with a curse'. The Jews of John the Baptists day (and Christ's day) did not heed, for the most part, and the Lord did smite them with a curse in AD 70. The message was Malachi's conclusion and a blunt call to heed the Word of God.

I must say that I have enjoyed the series on Malachi and wish it could have been longer. I managed only 12 messages out of it. I have called it 'the most New Testament-like of any Old Testament book'.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Update: Oops! That would be 8/27 Sermon summaries. I am so bad with simple things like what day is it, what town am I in, who am I? etc. I am usually not late for supper, though.

Why I am reading Difficult Passages in the Epistles

I have on the sidebar a list of books I am currently reading. There are probably a few others, but these are the ones I am mostly carrying around with me. I just finished Pickering, and have blogged a bit from his ideas. I will be doing some more on that one shortly, The Tragedy of Compromise (and every one of Pickerings books and booklets) should be required reading for every fundamentalist.

One of the other books on my list is a little book I picked up a few years ago. It is called Difficult Passages in the Epistles by Robert H. Stein. Robert Stein is currently a professor at Southern Seminary. At the time he wrote this book, he taught at Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. I believe that is a Baptist General Conference school. These schools are evangelical schools that I cannot recommend, although some good work has come out of them.

I ran across Dr. Stein's book when I was researching the subject of Christians and alcohol. For the record, I am a vehement opponent of the use of alcohol. As my father says, "It is a curse." Christians should stay away from it as far as possible. They are fools for playing with it.

In my research on the subject, I ran across a number of articles in Bibliotheca Sacra that referenced an article written by Dr. Stein in Christianity Today in 1972. The quotes from the article intrigued me and I searched in vain to find a copy of the article. Some time later, I decided to search Dr. Stein's name on Google and found the link to his bio on the Southern Seminary faculty. So I wrote to him, asking him if he was the author of the article and indeed he was. He told me that I could also find the article in his book Difficult Passages in the New Testament. At the time, I had trouble finding the book, but I did find two books called Difficult Passages in the Gospels and Difficult Passages in the Epistles. I ordered both, in the hopes that one of them might have the article.

Well, the book on the epistles has the article. It is an excellent treatment of the word oinos, the Greek word for wine and agrees with some of the research I had done in secular writings on the history of wine and alcohol. I highly recommend the book to you for that article alone, but the book is more than that. It is a collection of essays teaching careful hermeneutical (bible interpretation) principles and is well worth the effort.

With respect to the article on wine, Dr. Stein shows that the way the ancients drank and produced wine is very different from today. The alcohol content was generally lower and it was always drunk diluted. Those who try to make arguments for the use of alcohol based on the references in the Bible simply are not using good hermeneutics.

****

I had planned a more controversial article for today, but I let my notes at church. Maybe tomorrow. I know all five of my readers will be waiting with bated breath!

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Preaching through the New Testament in 7 months

A few years ago, I ran across this article on the Logos website. It is a testimonial from a pastor in Texas who described an intense project of preaching through the Bible in one year. I started talking about it with my wife and the more we discussed it the more interested I became.

Our church people have varied educational backgrounds. A couple have college and university degrees, but most have just finished high school (and a few haven't). All but one have never had a Bible college education. Their overall understanding of the Scriptures is rudimentary at best.

The project intrigued me, so I downloaded the materials and began planning for adapting it for our own use.

Last fall and winter, we preached through the entire Old Testament, organized chronologically. I called it "9 Months of Wondering Through the Old Testament". Every service was devoted to this project. Three on Sundays and every Wednesday night. We covered every book. Our messages were mostly "birds-eye" views, detail-oriented sermons simply couldn't be done in order to keep up with the schedule. Using pastor Bolender's study guide, we produced our own (some minor doctrinal differences, plus a different schedule).

This summer, I preached through Malachi (still not as detailed as I would like!)and also taught some lessons in our Adult Bible Study hour on the Intertestamental Period.

Today we start our next project, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, a seven month series through the New Testament. The series involves preaching Matthew/Mark/Luke using a Harmony of the Gospels, then Acts interspersed with James, Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans in harmony with their time of writing, followed by Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and 1 Timothy (Paul writing from prison). Next is Titus, 1 & 2 Peter, 2 Timothy, Hebrews, and Jude as the activities of the apostles and the church become constrained under the Neronian persecution. Finally we conclude with John, 1, 2, & 3 John, and Revelation, providing the capstone of God's revelation to men, a reflective look back on the first century of Christianity by the last apostle, and a magnificent look forward to the final revelation of Jesus Christ at the end of the age.

We will again be devoting four sermons a week to this project, we will be covering approximately eight chapters every week. Our first study guide includes some extra introductory material but is 26 pages long! Hopefully the next one will be a little shorter.

Our Old Testament study will shortly be available by CD-ROM with an HTML index. I hope to provide the same for the New Testament when we are finished. We are also thinking about putting all the messages [audio only] on a DVD with the written material. This will provide a resource for our people in the future. We aren't going to go back and do this project again!

It has been a great blessing to our church to see the Old Testament unfold before our eyes, and I am sure the New Testament study will do the same, with greater understanding now that we have worked through the Old Testament.