A Social Gospel? (Part 2)

Over the last 25 years, there has been a movement among American Christians to get involved in calling our nation to a higher level of morality. We are encouraged to engage our energy, our resources, our time and our money in an effort to politically change the moral climate of our country. And let me state that this desire for morality and virtue is a noble one. We should desire virtue, integrity, honesty and morality. These traits are God's will for our lives. We all support Biblical morality - what Christian could do less? It is our responsibility to address sin, to confront sin, to call it what it is, to expose it and to attack it. But that's really not the issue. It's not about whether we're against immorality - of course we're against immorality, of course we desire righteousness rather than unrighteousness. But how we get there, how we produce that morality - that is the issue.

We have to ask ourselves - is this the Christian mandate? Is this our ministry? As always, we must turn to the Scriptures to see what is said there.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. - 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

There it is, clear as a bell. Herein lies the mandate and ministry for the Christian in the world - the ministry of reconciliation to God through Christ which brings about righteousness, transformation and a new creation. God is pleading with the world through us to be reconciled to Him, and in this reconciliation - this new creation - there alone lies the ability to practice the morality, virtue and righteousness that we all long for. We can add to this the great commission, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel." If we are not fulfilling our commission then we're doing something that we have not been mandated by God to do. Anything other than this, no matter how noble, is off target.

Are we to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the sick? Absolutely! Can we volunteer in hospitals, pregnancy centers, schools and homeless shelters? Yes, yes and yes! But notice in all these cases that we are only helping, fulfilling our purpose to be the salt and light of the world - not trying to enforce morality. Moralism has never been the message of the Scriptures. Isaiah said, "All your righteousness is as filthy rags." Romans says "There is none righteous, not even one. There's none that understands. There's none who seeks after God." So whatever imaginary righteousness men have, whatever superficial morality they may exhibit - in the end it gains them absolutely nothing. Men can come through some crisis and decide to clean up their life. They can turn away from living an immoral life and begin to live a cleaner, better life - and it has no bearing on their relationship to God. Whatever somebody's external degree of morality might be, all are condemned sinners headed to hell. You might be the most moral Pharisee in Israel, you might be the most moral rabbi, you might be the most moral cleric, the most moral Mormon - unless you are reconciled to God through His Son Jesus Christ it will make no difference whatsoever.

So we can see how dangerous it is for us to be diverted from the singular ministry and mandate that we've been given. This effort at cultural morality has many issues -here are a few notes and comments to think about:

• It wastes tremendous amounts of precious resources, time, money and energy. It doesn't matter whether you go to hell as a prostitute or a preacher, it only matters that you go to hell. We spend all this effort to clean up America through political and legislative means - but as Jeremiah asked "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or can the leopard change his spots"? Ephesians 5:16 says, "Make the most of your time because the days are evil and understand what the will of the Lord is and don't be foolish." The will of the Lord is to preach the message of reconciliation. To do something else is to be foolish and to waste time.


• It is bound for inevitable failure because you can't do it. No one can be truly righteous and moral before God apart from the transformation of his soul by the Holy Spirit through the gospel. If you don't change the heart, all you do is redirect the sin. If some sins become illegal, then people will just commit other sins or they'll commit the illegal ones in secret.


• It fails to understand the nature of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said "My Kingdom is not of this world." There's no connection between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. To spend all your time and energy and effort fighting for some element of human society is asanine and fails to understand the nature of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the realm of salvation where God rules over and blesses those who are in Christ. Why is it that somehow we've gotten this idea that we have to position America politically for the advancement of the Kingdom of God? They have absolutely no connection. I've heard people say, "If America keeps going the way it's going then we'll lose our freedom to preach and practice the Gospel". Let me state this clearly - there is nothing that can be done on the face of the earth by men politically or socially that has any impact whatsoever on the purposes of God in redemption.


• It fails to understand the spiritual significance of the salt and light as indicated in Matthew 5. People that promote a political and cultural solution to the problems in America today say "Well, we have to be the salt and the light". That is true. But the salt and light that Jesus is talking about are not moral influence, they are the gospel witness and the power of holy living. It is the imagery of us shining forth the truth (light) and the preservative of godly living and the manifestation of good works (salt).


• It has no New Testament model or pattern to follow except the Pharisees. They were the moral ones. Jesus said about them "When you're through making somebody a convert to your morality, you have made him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." I don't think I would be rejoicing to live in a Pharisaic dominated society - dominated by the mandates of self-righteous, cruel, merciless legalists who laid heavy burdens on people and gave them no help to bear them. There is no New Testament model for political action - absolutely none.


• It creates unholy unions in which the unbelieving and enemies of the gospel are joined together. You can find a lot of non-Christians - Mormons, Muslims, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. - to agree that we ought to have a more moral country. Political alliances are then created in order to work for certain moral causes. When you create these unions you do exactly what 2 Corinthians 6 says not to do, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has light with darkness, what agreement has Christ with Satan? Come out from among them and be separated." But this is exactly what you get when you're trying to achieve something through the legal system, the court system, through lobbying or through the media - you embrace other people who agree on the issue regardless of their spiritual status. The gospel is eclipsed and takes a back seat to the aims of the organization. Once that happens, it starts to stretch the boundaries of the Kingdom of God to embrace these people who are not in Christ, and before you know it we are accepting a Gospel of Inclusivism.


• It is very selective as to the sins it attacks. You don't find people fighting against a sin like pride. You don't see a great effort against materialism, divorce or adultery. It's a fight against homosexuality, pedophilia, abortion and pornography. Those are all "big" sins that we can all agree on. But let me tell you - it does not deal with the biggest sin in the world. The greatest commandment is "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." Therefore doesn't if follow that to break that commandment is the greatest sin - to have failed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? If you want to go after America's immorality, then let's indict the whole nation for not loving God. If we're going to call America to morality, then let's indict them where they need to be indicted and let's indict our own hearts where we need to be indicted and say we've broken the first and great commandment and we do it all the time and therefore we are all condemned to hell in desperate need of grace and forgiveness and salvation. That's the message.


• It fails to understand the true nature of spiritual warfare. To engage in human political efforts is not spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is smashing down all human ideologies with the truth of God. You have a whole world of people who think wrong. They think wrong about themselves. They think wrong about God. They think wrong about Christ if they think about Him at all. They need to think differently. They need to know the truth. They need to know the gospel. They need to know the truth about themselves, the truth about God, the truth about Christ, the truth about His work, the truth about salvation, grace, forgiveness. And it's when you bring that truth to the person and you engage in the war with their mind so that you can bring the truth to bear upon wrong thinking, that's the real spiritual war. So what is the church to be doing? To be preaching the glorious, extensive, complete and whole message of redemption in Jesus Christ and to take that great message to these people who are fortified in these ideological fortresses in which literally they're going to die unless somebody smashes the walls of those lying fortifications with the truth. It's a spiritual war - not a political one.


• It makes those we are commanded to lovingly reach with the gospel into the enemy rather than the mission field. The unbelievers, the immoral, the pornographers, the homosexuals and the abortionists all become vilified and hated within the Christian community. They become the enemies. But they aren't the enemies - they are the mission field. We need to make sure that the sinners in the world know that we love them enough to offer them forgiveness. The old adage of "hate the sin but love the sinner" still stands true.


• It reverses the divine order. That is, it makes morality the power for salvation. The idea is if we could get a more moral America, then it gives more opportunity to deliver the gospel and more people are going to believe the gospel. And that's really a reverse of the divine order. Morality is not the power for salvation, salvation is the power for morality.

So there are the problems - the reasons why I believe that it is wrong to try and enforce a cultural morality on this nation and any other. So what are we to do? Well, I could tell you what I believe we should do, but Sherry said it much better in her comment than I ever could.

Sherry's Comment:

I think it is right to vote according to the values of the Bible, not our wallets or our political party. I am not against campaigning for a Christian Candidate. I have done it. However, I know that my blessings do not come from Washington D.C., they come from the Creator of the Universe! My hope is in Jesus Christ and my life is in His hands, not the President, Congress, or anyone else for that matter.

When I read this blog this morning and the comments, all I could think about were weeds. Sounds crazy doesn't it? Let me explain:

There was a time that I had a huge yard. I desperately wanted to have a lawn that was just eye catching and felt like carpet when you walked on it (weird, I know). However, when I looked out over the yard all I could see were weeds! Have you ever tried pulling the "endless weed"? I would pull one, and it seemed like it would not only reappear in a few days, but it would bring company! I felt hopeless. I had children who played in the yard, pets whom made our yard their haven, so no chemicals were going to be used on the weeds. But how on earth would I get rid of them? One day I finally figured it out! Plant more GRASS! And so I did. I bought a huge bag of centipede grass seeds and got busy! Those grass seeds sprouted and grew and before I knew it, the grass choked out the weeds! If I planted more of the very thing I wanted and spent less time trying to pull out the very thing I didn’t want, I got better results. Go figure!

Our country is full of weeds, better known as sin. I look at our society, I see weeds of depravity, weeds of moral decline, weeds of political corruption, weeds of violence, weeds of abuse and weeds of crimes against other human beings, weeds of hate, weeds of pride, and I see the weeds that entangle the lost and keep them prisoners of the enemy. It does make you want to just jump up, run out and start snatching up weeds. But what if we planted grass instead? (1 Corinthians 3:6)

Picketing abortion clinics are like trying to pull weeds that are scattered out in a million acres, but supporting homes for unwed mothers or mentoring teens and pouring Christian values into their lives are like planting the grass.

Instead of spending time getting signatures against gay marriages (pulling weeds), why don't Christians spend more time with their spouses, have good marriages and be godly role models for their families and communities (that's planting grass).

We need to be planters. And who knows if each Christian would plant grass in their community, in their area of influence, could it be we wouldn’t have to worry so much about the weeds?

We need to take a stand in America alright, but it needs to be on our knees praying for this lost and dying world. Instead of looking at people with disgust, can we see the weeds that entangle them and mourn for their condition? Could we drop our TV remotes, movie theatre tickets, shopping trip plans, or endless hours on Facebook, or whatever seems to steal our time, and get on our faces and weep for souls? This is the watering.