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"As I read the New Testament, I do not see any example of the church understanding its gospel or its mission to be the direct shaping of the laws of the land or the improving of its structures," said Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. "Certainly, the apostle Paul never tells the church to spend its time explicitly instructing the Roman emperor or shaping the pagans' view of culture."

According to Dever, Christians must never confuse implications of the gospel with the gospel itself. "The gospel that has been committed to us is the Christian message that Jesus has died in the place of sinners in order to reconcile them to God," Dever said. "That gospel has been uniquely entrusted to the church, and thus it must remain the center of our message and our mission."

It is no coincidence that leading pastor/scholars have taken up this question about the gospel's public implications. How you answer the question affects how you lead your church. Wright praises God when Christians in the churches he oversees go "straight from worshiping Jesus in church to making a radical difference in the material lives of people down the street." Dever makes frequent evangelistic appeals in his preaching, and he encourages church members to seek opportunities for personal evangelism.

Tim Keller and his Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City fall somewhere between Wright and Dever. Writing for Leadership, Keller answered this year's question for the Christian Vision Project, "Is our gospel too small?" (The article is not yet available online.) In so doing he took a stab at defining the gospel. "Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from the judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever."

It's the last clause of this sentence that makes the difference. Is God's plan to renew creation part of the gospel message? If so, is it the center of the gospel or a peripheral component of the Good News? Again, how you answer these questions affects how you will live, and how you will expect fellow church members to act.

"When the third, 'eschatological' element is left out, Christians get the impression that nothing much about this world matters," Keller wrote. "Theoretically, grasping the full outline should make Christians interested in both evangelistic conversions as well as service to our neighbor and working for peace and justice in the world."

Since at least the late 19th century, evangelicals have struggled to strike this balance. Fundamentalists blamed modernists for shrouding the gospel in social garb. Carl Henry led an evangelical movement by calling for renewed application of the gospel to the world's social ills. Billy Graham and John Stott disagreed over the proper balance. We may not solve these questions in our day, either. But to ask them is to engage in a defining evangelical practice.

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

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May (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52