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Christianity Today, January, 2009

The Greatest Social Need

It happens to be something that evangelicals are specially gifted to meet.

A Christianity Today editorial | posted 1/19/2009 10:15AM

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The greatest social need in the world today is not HIV/AIDS outreach. It's not hunger. It's not global warming. Not ending poverty or eliminating malaria or tuberculosis. Not clean water. Not racial reconciliation. Not sexual trafficking. Not abortion. And it's not peace in the Middle East, and not even world peace.

These are not unimportant social issues. They grab the heart of God. God's compassion has always been focused on the poor and oppressed—something noted all through the Bible. So it's no surprise that God instructs his people to "learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause" (Isa. 1:17, ESV).

And they have grabbed the hearts of evangelicals in a fresh way. One telling example: A decade ago, it was still rare to find an evangelical church with an HIV/AIDS ministry. Today, one can hardly find an evangelical church that doesn't have or support one.

HIV/AIDS ministry is one book in a library of social action we have written recently. And it's been noticed. Just last February, we felt our chest swell with pride when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said:

Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria, and genocide in Darfur. … Today, many evangelicals are powerful internationalists and humanitarians.

Other examples abound in politics, foreign policy, and international justice. It's been quite a ride on the racehorse of social action.

Despite the advances, none of this constitutes our movement's greatest contribution to the world. None of these good works—nay, great works—deal with the most profound social problem facing humankind.

DIGGING OUT THE ROOT

That social problem is alienation from God.

It is in fact the first social problem. After Adam and Eve eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, the Lord God—with whom they have had warm fellowship—seeks them out. But they hide in fear and shame. From this, the biblical story unfolds to reveal murder, lust, greed, loneliness, pride, oppression, and a host of other evils that plague humankind.

The biblical picture is clear: The breakdown of society is rooted in the breakdown of our relationship with our Creator. And the biblical response is equally clear: The way out of social chaos begins with people being restored to God. This won't solve all social problems immediately. But transformed individuals go hand in hand with transforming social networks.

Of course, this alienation is much more than a social problem. It is a fundamentally spiritual problem that constitutes humanity's greatest crisis: billions of men and women who do not know the love and grace of their Creator. Some live in societies characterized by fear of the spiritual world. Others live in religious cultures where people are taught they must earn their way through heaven's gates.

Many people live in ignorance of life's richest possibilities—that they can know a loving God, and that his power can move within them. He calms fears, forgives guilt, and instills an unearthly joy. He establishes the lonely in the family of faith and gives life to the dying—life of startling and enduring dimensions, not just for individuals but also in the community we call the kingdom.

We are right to give so much of our energy to relieving social ills, but we must never forget that the greatest social ill has spiritual roots. John Green is the founder of Emmaus Ministries in Chicago, an outreach to male prostitutes. His ministry offers food, shelter, counseling, and an array of social services to help men move out of that degrading lifestyle. Some would think that is more than enough. But Green disagrees, saying, "We do violence to the poor if we don't share the gospel with them."

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January 2009, Vol. 53, No. 1

Comments (34)

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beth sheffield(Registered User)

January 24, 2009 3:52pm

Spiritual needs are far more important than social needs. The God-Man Christ is mankind's greatest need because He is the ONLY ONE who can solve ALL of our problems, including social problems that we have. Depraved mankind does not have the power or ability to solve any problem without Christ, and that includes misguided politicians who wrongly and arrogantly make themselves out to be a "messiah". People need the good news of Christ more than they need anything else, so if I had an opportunity to give the gospel to a homeless person I would. I would also give them Bible doctrine if I had it on me. I would then give them money for a meal and direct them to a shelter to get the help they need. I am not a pastor or an evangelist, but as a believer in Christ (Christian), I have my first and most important responsibility to people is to be an ambassador for my Lord and only Savior of the world, Christ. This editorial is actually one of the better ones that I have read.

Ruth Wilkinson

January 24, 2009 9:26am

In the context I live and work in (sgworship.blogspot.com), I've found that most people GenX and older have heard the gospel repeatedly as kids and in soup kitchens. Most have 'prayed the prayer' at least once because someone in authority wanted them to. It's made no difference in their lonely addicted lives. All of the 'preaching' has accomplished little if anything in bringing them to a Jesus filled life. So, we've chosen very deliberately to not go down that road. We don't even say grace at our weekly and monthly meals. (Feel free to tell me why that's wrong. I've heard all the arguments.) But we do have conversations with friends (and they are truly friends) which are painful and challenging in both directions. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit. To tweak Mr. Green's quote, we do a violence to "the poor" by treating them as a group and not as individual people, and the church fails by trying to solve the problem as an organization, rather than as individual people.

Beau in NC

January 22, 2009 5:14pm

Why are we even debating this after 2000 plus years? It's not an either/or. 'Tis a both/and.

Paul Maurice Martin

January 21, 2009 9:18pm

" Billions of men and women who do not know the love and grace of their Creator" - it's difficult to see this as the fundamental social problem in the world. Buddhists, for example, don't share our tradition in this regard, yet Buddhism strikes me as perhaps the most peacable of all religions - there's certainly not much in the news about fanatical Buddhists doing violence! However, it seems to me that your definition of the problem does work if one's perspective is that God is ineffable and that someone like the Dali Lama may be profoundly connected to God even without a cognitive understanding of God that's the same as someone from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Joe Chan

January 21, 2009 10:03am

The greatest social need is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is troubling that many so-called "mission works" are merely social works. Yes, they are in and of themselves are not bad, but they are not mission works or evangelism according to the Bible Clothing and feeding the poor and needy are noble acts, but they are temporal. The great need for the church and believers is to tell the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know many will say that we need to earn the right, or develop the relationship. OK, but do not let these be excuses and distractions from telling the gospel. Jesus did not come to feed the hungry or clothe the poor, He came to die for our sins to save us from eternal damnation.

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