Given the contemporary renewal of evangelical social interest, the problem now confronting conservative Protestantism is the definition of a sound evangelical social thrust.
To answer “Not the social gospel,” is at once too simple and too full of risk. For one thing, while the old optimistic liberal theology is now dead, the optimistic ethic it generated in practice remains a very lively corpse. One need only consider government policy in the U. S. State Department. American foreign policy remains predominantly keyed to optimistic liberal assumptions about human nature and history. It is easy to detect still the lingering influence of liberal Protestant ministers whose sons and converts were attracted to government service as a form of Christian activity through the romantic vision of the social gospel. American strategy within the United Nations and her dealings with foreign powers often reflect the moralistic expectation (and naive trust in unregenerate human nature) that Christian principles must inevitably acquire self-evident compulsion in the thought and action of men everywhere. But naively to expect that just and durable peace can be spawned on purely natural foundations simply by the vision of righteousness (or simply to rely on the dread of mutual destruction, to add a mid-century modification based on an appeal to self-interest) is to underestimate the depth of depravity in human life and history and to disregard the indispensability of divine regeneration if the human heart is to grasp and pursue the course of righteousness.
Danger Of Liberal Inheritance
Ironically, fundamentalists, in their new eagerness to correct their past social neglect, at times themselves imbibe certain errors of the social gospel. They have happily avoided the popular tendency to embrace left-wing philosophies of the day, which many liberal reformers mistook for authentic expressions of Christian ethics. (Certain American evangelical enthusiasts in the nineteenth century confessedly already had fallen into this same error, and, like some British evangelicals sympathetic to socialism in our century, thereby disclosed their failure to discern the basic clash between Christian libertarianism and collectivism.) The social gospel came to be prominently identified with collectivistic theory because Protestant liberalism has surrendered Christianity’s historic confidence both in a revealed theology and in a revealed ethic. The formative philosophies of the modern era were therefore easily confused with a creative Christian social morality. Its defection from revealed doctrines and principles enabled Protestant modernism to confer Christian blessing upon contemporary programs whose basic principles sometimes contradicted the revealed social philosophy of the Church. While evangelical circles by contrast have clung fast to a biblically revealed theology and ethic, and through this fidelity have largely escaped enthusiasm for collectivistic theories of social life, evangelicals in their rediscovery of social concern stand in danger of being drawn, as Protestant liberalism was, into an arbitrary identification of current social movements and programs as intrinsically Christian. Liberal Protestantism openly equated Christian social concern with support for specific modern enterprises and goals such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, giant labor unions, and integration. During the First World War the program embraced pacifism as well. Some contemporary evangelicals newly concerned with the problems of social justice naively imply that the social gospel is acceptable enough provided only that the requirements of personal redemption and regeneration appear as its preface. But if evangelical conscience grasps basic presuppositions, it cannot regard the social gospel as an acceptable vehicle and exposition of biblical social ethics, much as the Gospel of redemption has both personal and social implications.
We do not say that the evangelical is called upon in advance to reject and repudiate everything that the social gospel espoused. But even the social gospel’s constructive elements must be brought for their justification within the orbit of divinely revealed principles, and related properly to the biblical view of life and history. Moreover, social gospel insistence that only by the approval of specific contemporary agencies and programs as authentically Christian does Christian ethics become relevant must be challenged. All “isms and ists” must be brought constantly under the scrutinizing Lordship of Christ and tested by his revealed will.
Neo-Orthodox Dissent
Although the social gospel approach is still influential, the evangelical attack upon it is today assisted by neo-orthodox critics who now hold a virile grip upon many Protestant intellectual centers. Both conservative and neo-orthodox theologians scorn the optimistic portrait of a universe progressively evolving to perfection, and doubt the sufficiency of Christian idealism alone to inspire an age of dedication to truth and justice. Both movements insist that the universe is fallen and desperately wicked, and that supernatural redemption is its lone hope. Pronouncements of neo-orthodox thinkers often diverge and conflict, but certain elements nonetheless set apart the American articulation of its view of social ethics from both the classic liberal approach crystallized in the social gospel and the historic outlines of evangelical social ethic: 1. The depth-dimension of sin in human history is regarded as so determinative that the ideal of Christian culture is dismissed, all cultures being viewed simply from the standpoint of Christian criticism. 2. Social problems are regarded as not decisively responsive to personal redemption. Hence its advancement of social justice relies upon the pressure of organized opinion and the compulsion of legislation more than upon evangelism and a ministry of regeneration. 3. Although special supernatural redemption is affirmed, both revealed ethical principles and doctrines are scorned, in common with the liberal tradition in Protestant theology; social strategy is held to be governed by “middle axioms” which, while held to be creatively and critically relevant, abandon a basis in revelation.
Now the social outlook of liberalism had sought above all else to avoid Christianity’s preoccupation with the world to come in order that it might fervently address the vexing social evils of this life. The unhappy outcome was the social gospel, prone to equate the activities of unregenerate humanity at its best with authentic Christian achievements, and neglectful of the wholly proper priorities of supernatural revelation and redemption. Neo-orthodoxy is concerned to hold both worlds in view—not simply in their chronological succession of this life and that to come, but in the existential relationship of this life continually judged by Christ its exalted Lord. Yet speculative considerations bulk large in its theological and ethical positions; guiding elements already given suggest some of the unfortunate consequences accruing to its social perspective. Distrust of rational revelation leaves neo-orthodoxy without absolute basis for the ethical positions it advocates, and also with the practical problem of enlisting Christian commitment and action for temporary imperatives as if they were in fact the will of God. The anti-intellectual element in neo-orthodoxy thus ultimately dissipates its social dynamic and divorces its ethical declarations from an assured basis in revelation. The further reliance on factors not found in the Great Commission for the Church’s special penetration into the social order tends to formulate Christian social action in terms competitive with the proclamation of the Gospel and minimizes the significance of evangelism and spiritual revival for the advancement of social morality. Moreover, the neo-orthodox disparagement of the ideal of Christian culture fails to do full justice to the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the redeemed community. Although a sound theology must recognize that the defilement of sin precludes both glorification in the present life of the believer and absolute perfection in history, and also that the aggregate of group behavior is likely to compound the weaknesses of individual behavior, nonetheless a distinctive social morality seems possible to the community of evangelical faith as assuredly as sanctification is normative for the regenerate person.
Evangelical Strategy
The evangelical perspective for social action is therefore sharpened by a distinctive vision of life and history inspired by the revelation of God’s glory and grace.
1. Christian social leaders set their cultural objectives in the larger framework of the Christian mission, and do not regard themselves primarily as social reformers. They give no quarter to the illusion that Christianity is primarily an ethical idealism engaged in denouncing political and social injustice, or aiming at social reform as an end in itself. Even in the social thrust they preserve Christianity’s basic nature as a religion of supernatural redemption for sinners. The Christian leaders who opposed slavery a century ago did so not simply as abolitionists, but as heralds of freedom under the Creator-Redeemer God dealing simultaneously with man’s spiritual and material condition. Even well-intentioned men who regrettably turned the Scriptures to objectionable conclusions in the controversy over slavery rightly sought an ultimate sanction, and therefore judged slavery from the standpoint of divine approval or disapproval. The anti-slavery evangelicals saw that to undermine slavery (they would have spoken similarly of segregation and other contemporary vices), men must be led to see its intolerable contradiction of the rights dignifying all men by their creation as members of one common family, of the value attached to all men by our Lord’s incarnation, atonement and resurrection in the body, and of the temple of divinity God would make of humble believers irrespective of color and race. It would not have surprised them to learn that a citizenry that argued the question of human freedom within narrower limits would some day sense an emptiness and bondage even in the workaday world that would encourage white worker and black worker alike to reach wistfully for social redemption through the promise of a collectivistic society. They saw the interconnection of the Christian mission and human liberty.
2. Evangelical social action throbs with the evangelistic invitation to new life in Jesus Christ. “Ye must be born again” is the Church’s unvarying message to the world. Evangelical Christianity allows the secular world no hopeful program of social solutions that renders merely optional the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. It holds hope for the social order because it offers the prospect of personal redemption. Individual regeneration is not only a chief but an indispensable means of social reform. The kingdom of God is not to be separated from a redeemed society.
3. Reliance on the Holy Spirit to sunder the shackles of sin requires a regard for social evils first in the light of personal wickedness. The evangelical recognizes that social disorders are in the last analysis a commentary on the disorder of private life, and that the modern dilemma is essentially a predicament involving persons who need to be addressed individually. The hidden connection between social and private vices—as between war and lust (cf. James 4:1, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?”)—is thus kept in conspicuous view. The spectacle of prominent social reformers indifferent to their own private vices—the divorced statesman championing international unity, the debauched psychiatrist promising soul health to others, for example—is an absurd spectacle and an amoral luxury for the theory that decency begins at home. Deep experience of “the things of God” is thus considered the Christian reformer’s best asset. The new birth restores fallen man’s personality and his powers to the service of God, qualifying him with a new nature and moral dynamic.
4. Evangelicals insist that social justice is a divine requirement for the whole human race, not for the Church alone. The revealed commandments and rules of behavior are universally valid. All the basic laws of society begin with the divine law. Righteousness exalts a nation; a people voluntarily given over to oppression must suffer divine judgment. That man and society live on a moral basis is a requirement of both human laws and of the law of God as well. The Christian witness will stress the interdependence of revealed religion and human freedom, which is dependent on spiritual and moral foundations. Freedom is indivisible (it is not “four freedoms” nor five); man’s liberties are interdependent. (Wherever freedom’s spiritual foundations crumble, these liberties vanish; conversely, where freedom disappears, the propagation of Christianity is jeopardized). Revealed religion proclaims the threat to freedom latent in collectivistic social planning and in big government. The neglect of the larger facets of freedom, and the consequent detachment of social principles from a supernatural source and sanction, have indirectly aided the socialistic and totalitarian assault on free enterprise, private property and the profit motive, as well as upon other principles approved by the biblical doctrine of human rights and responsibilities. To assail national strongholds of evil in quest of a righteous nation, to challenge institutional sin in order to widen Christian influence over human society, are essential requirements of the Christian conscience. Both the affirmation of the Lordship of Christ and the imperative of the Great Commission provide an impetus to seek the renewal of society.
5. Despite their insistence on the spiritual and moral roots of social evil, evangelicals are aware that personal sin often finds its occasion in the prevailing community situation. They do not underestimate the importance of the general environment. In the task of social reform evangelical Protestantism exalts the ministry of preaching with its call to personal decision; it stresses the role of Christian preaching, evangelism and revival in weakening and overcoming community evils. The prophetic ministry of the pulpit creates a climate which moves toward effective solution of the problems of social injustice by calling out a race of renewed men bound heart to heart in devotion to the purpose of God in creation and redemption.
6. The fellowship within the churches is a mirror of the realities of a new social order. The new order is therefore not simply a distant dream; it exists already in an anticipative way in the regenerate fellowship of the Church. The neglect of a shared community experience within the fellowship of the churches is one of the lamentable facets of twentieth century Christianity. The believer’s vision for a more equitable social order gains its clearest perspective and major dynamic in this circle of faith. For regenerate believers are constituted one body of which the exalted Christ—having already passed through death, judgment and resurrection for us—is the living head. Moreover, from his life in the eternal order he already mediates to the body an earnest of the powers that belong to the coming age. The Christian responsibility for a more equitable social order is thus to be fulfilled first within the life of the fellowship of faith, where the passionate concern for righteousness and love is presumably the daily burden of each and all. The mission of the Church is not simply to condemn social injustices; it is to exhibit what can be done to transcend them in a spiritual society of redeemed persons. Men everywhere are called to obedience to the revealed will of God, summoned to repentance from sin, to personal trust in Christ, and to identification with Christ’s Church.
7. By maintaining the connection between social reform and the law of love, evangelicals face the organized evils of society with the power of sanctified compassion. Christian holiness issues no license for the ecstatic enjoyment of the vision of God as a merely private option; rather, it insists that love of God reflects itself in love for neighbor, and enlists men of piety as sacrificial servants of their fellows. The experience of sanctification more and more socializes the individual disposition and qualifies men with new moral power to implement benevolent motives. The influence of spiritual revivals and the resultant quest for Christian holiness have therefore been a prime source of humanitarian impulses. The believer’s personal debt of love to God and his passion for the lost impel him, so that Christian activity transcends the antithesis between spiritual and social service. The compassionate factor in the Christian social thrust, with its eye on the value of the individual, delivers social service from its impersonal tendency to deal with the people as merely so many cases or illustrations of a given complex of circumstances. Social compassion thus holds status as a prime motive and duty of the Church. He who withholds love from another because he considers him unworthy removes himself from the love God manifested to us in the gift and death of Christ while we were yet sinners, yea, actually enemies of God.
8. The pulpit is to proclaim the revealed will of God, including the ethical principles of the Bible. The spoken word is to urge man’s acceptance of the Crucified and Risen Christ. It prompts obedience to his will. It tests contemporary solutions by the plumb line of these permanent guideposts. It has no franchise to invest specific contemporary parties, programs and personalities with approval in the name of divine revelation and the Church. But it has biblical authority for the courageous proclamation of the state divinely willed but limited in power, of man’s inalienable freedom and duty under God, of private property as a divine stewardship, of free enterprise under God, and much else that speaks relevantly to our social crisis.
9. The Christian influence upon society is registered most intimately through family and immediate neighbor relations, and then more broadly in the sphere of vocation or daily work in which the believer’s service of God and man is elaborated in terms of a labor of love, and then politically as a citizen of two worlds. In the fellowship of marriage, believers are not to be yoked with unbelievers; thus a family circle is shaped to lift the ideal of neighbor love to the most intimate and sacrificial heights. But the believer’s involvement in the world of economics and the state involves necessary relations with others outside the circle of redemption. The society of the home, where children are first welcomed into the family of creation and then later into the family of faith, is a parable that quickens neighbor love and Christian witness to men in the world at large. In the realm of work, the believer blends these concerns by the way he values his daily job as a calling by which to serve God and man. In the political realm, he supports the state as an instrument of justice subordinate to the revealed will and purpose of God.
10. Concern for righteousness and justice throughout the social order requires the believer as an individual to range himself for or against specific options for social reform and change. In discriminating these he will seek in good conscience to promote above all the revealed ethical verities, bringing the contemporary alternatives under their critical scrutiny, and approving what is good, disapproving what is objectionable.
Spared From Deviations
This frame of conviction and action not only has supplied the evangelical movement with a special orientation on social evils but has protected the community of faith in the past from many errors:
1. Indifference to the cultural situation outside the churches. They deprived “infidel” reformers of the opportunity to shame them to action because they disallowed the initiative for social renewal to pass the secular agencies which wailed the decay of Christianity. No agency more than the churches manifested a ceaseless interest in the welfare of mankind and made the elevation of degraded humanity its task.
2. The hasty imposition of Christian ideals upon the social order in the hope that their validity would be self-evident and their performance implemented by unregenerate humanity as an avenue to social stability.
3. The needless and arbitrary identification of particular social programs, sometimes quite secular in spirit, as essentially and authentically Christian.
4. An undue reliance merely on propaganda, education, and persuasion, or yet on legislation and compulsion to revolutionize society, rather than on the spiritual weapon of a regenerate morality. They suffer no illusion that society can be coerced into the practice of brotherly kindness and mutual devotion. Rather they recognized that conscience must be rebuked and sensitized, and the will supernaturally re-empowered in the battle against social ills.
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