Evangelism and Social Action in Latin America

Evangelicals dispute the liberal thesis that the Church’s evangelistic task is to change the structures of society, not to proclaim a message of personal salvation

Evangelical foreign missions have traditionally been concerned almost exclusively with evangelism. As William Gillam of the Oriental Missionary Society observes, “In the drive of evangelism, too often we have rushed by the hungry ones to get to the lost ones.”

There are good historical reasons for this evangelical aversion to church social action. At the turn of the century, the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch and others who advocated the social gospel set forth salvation through the utopian hope of ushering in the Kingdom of God by man’s efforts. This radical departure from biblical truth caused a very strong reaction among conservatives, a reaction that largely remained for many years, even after the decline of the social gospel in the 1930s.

The reasons, however, do not constitute an excuse. The Bible has always spoken up clearly against social injustice. Passages such as Ezekiel 22:23–31, Amos 8:4–14, and James 2:1–20 leave no question as to God’s concern that his children be involved in social problems. Yet it is only within the last decade or so that many evangelicals have been restudying the passages that bear on social ethics, and repenting for their shortsightedness. The lag has put us at a distinct disadvantage in the crucial area of social service, especially in the underdeveloped countries.

On mission fields such as Latin America, where people are deeply involved in one of the most explosive and widespread social revolutions in history, the relation of the Church to society is a top-priority issue. There is no pulling back. Christians, like everyone else in Latin America, are caught in a whirlpool of rapid social change, and they demand to know what the Bible has to say to them in this situation.

While evangelicals grope for a sound social ethic relevant to underdeveloped countries, the liberals have attempted to fill the gap with their well-settled formulations. They are now disseminating their convictions with astonishing rapidity and zeal. Focal point of this new torrent of propaganda in Latin America is the River Plate area, with headquarters of Iglesia y Sociedad (Church and Society) in Montevideo and the Union Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires. Iglesia y Sociedad is an aggressive branch of the World Council of Churches, although some sort of autonomy is professed by the River Plate group.

For several years leaders of Iglesia y Sociedad, such as Luis Odell and Hiber Conteris, with the support of men like Richard Schaull, José Miguez-Bonino, and Emilio Castro, have been crystallizing their position on Latin American society, economics, and politics. Their radical proposals for solutions to social ills have often leaned so far toward the left that they have been accused by responsible people as being Marxists in Christian clothing. They themselves admit their agreement with much of Marxist revolutionary doctrine, although they would not hold to Marx’s atheistic and totally materialistic point of view.

Since many Latin Americans already leaned to the left in politics, the River Plate social ethic did not attract much attention. But when the group recently began the attempt to formulate a theology on which to base their already established ethics, the rub began. A recent book, Responsabilidad Social del Cristiano (The Christian’s Social Responsibility), is the first systematic effort in search of this theological position. Because this symposium was written by Latin Americans themselves, it carries the added danger of commanding acceptance because of its appeal to nationalism rather than because of sound theological principles.

The controversial point pressed by this book and other related material is: The changing of the structures of society, and not the proclamation of a message geared to win converts, should be the true evangelistic burden of today’s Church.

This is not a regression to the social gospel, although it is just as dangerous to biblical evangelism. Whereas the social gospel was optimistic and held a high view of man, the new theology is more realistic in its evaluation of man as a sinner in a sinful society. However, the practical outworking of both is quite similar: the Church best fulfills its mission in this world by engaging in social action rather than by preaching a traditional evangelistic message to the unsaved. Here are some objectionable emphases of the new approach:

1. In its evangelistic program the Church should avoid proselytism. “We are constantly tempted to think of evangelism in terms of proselytism,” protests Brazilian Rubem Alves. “To evangelize is rather to announce the present and operative power of God, transforming the confusion of history according to his loving purposes” (Responsabilidad Social del Cristiano, p. 60). Argentine Pastor Carlos Valle states: “To evangelize is not to convert, it is not to bring souls to Christ, it is not to make church members.”

This use of the term “proselytism” is infelicitous, since the word usually carries negative overtones. But in the literal sense of the word, the Apostle Paul himself was a proselyte, and according to the Book of Acts he spent his life proselyting others. It is difficult to see how an objection to winning souls to Christ as the primary objective of evangelism can be sustained, unless one accepts the next presupposition:

2. The Gospel should be addressed not to individuals, but rather to the community or the society. This was perhaps the principal point of contention in a high-level debate carried on by the late R. Kenneth Strachan of the Latin America Mission and Victor E. W. Hayward of the World Council of Churches in the pages of the International Review of Missions (April, 1964; October, 1964: April, 1965). Is the Christian message to be coordinated with the expectation of world rescue? Hayward says, “I submit that careful biblical exegesis reveals that conversion, though individually experienced, is nevertheless essentially a community matter” (April, 1965, p. 190).

D. T. Niles of Ceylon has had a strong influence on the River Plate theologians because he, like they, represents an underdeveloped area of the world in the throes of rapid social change. Niles has written: “The heart of Christianity is not concern for the soul but concern for the world.… The end-event of the Christian life is not simply salvation of the person but a new heaven and a new earth, each person’s salvation being his share in this new creation” (Upon the Earth, p. 52). To this way of thinking, there is no final separation of sheep from goats; rather, all men and women share the same ultimate fate.

The New Testament, on the other hand, makes it quite clear that salvation is an individual matter; spiritual birth, like natural birth, is a one-by-one process (John 1:12, 13). Therefore, while the society in which persons live might affect the type of homiletics used to proclaim the message to them, it does not change the fact that the eternal destiny of each person in the society depends on whether he accepts or rejects the message. Strachan, in his reply to Hayward, correctly observes that “the point of contact must always be an individual one” (IRM, April, 1964, p. 213).

3. Redemption is an accomplished fact on a worldwide scale. Taking a cue front Bonhoeffer, the River Plate theologians work from the assumption that in Christ God has redeemed not only the Church but also the world, and that whether they know it or not, all men are in Christ. They say that “Bonhoeffer begins his study on the activity [of Christians in an ‘adult world’] on the basis that God has redeemed in Christ all those who have separated themselves from Him in sin” (Responsabilidad Social del Cristiano, p. 36). And, “The redemptive purpose of God in Jesus Christ is universal, as universal as the creation, as universal as the person of Christ” (ibid., p. 27). These ideas come very close to universalism, although all these writers consistently deny that they are universalists. It is most confusing to read Hayward’s statement, “I am not preaching universalism,” on one page, and then on the next, “St. Paul sees Christ as the head of a new redeemed humanity, more than retrieving all that had been lost through Adam’s fall.… Election means not God’s choosing of privileged favorites for salvation, but his selective purpose in calling men to be the instruments of His plan of redemption for all mankind” (IRM, April, 1964, pp. 202–205). Then D. T. Niles claims that “the New Testament does not allow us to say either Yes or No to the question: ‘Will all men be saved?’ ” (Upon the Earth, p. 96).

Whether this be called universalism or not, it surely represents a deficient understanding of the New Testament teaching that all humanity is divided sharply into two spiritual races, those “in Adam” and those “in Christ,” and that the former are doomed to hell if they do not repent, while the latter have become citizens of the Kingdom of God. Redemption relates to those “in Adam” in the sense of being available to all who will repent; but if hell exists, it can hardly be said of those suffering there that Christ has redeemed them.

4. The mission of the Church is not to bring outsiders in but rather to move out into the world. This feeling, which is now the basic thought behind the slogan, “The Church is mission,” is so strong among the River Plate theologians that they say, “The social ministry of the local church has a sacramental character” (Responsabilidad Social del Cristiano, p. 60). Hayward states this position with a rhetorical question: “Is the correlate of the Gospel the world or the Church?” (IRM, April, 1964, p. 201).

Strachan skillfully answers this by stating that the question assumes a false dichotomy. He goes on to point out that “regardless of failures in its attitude or conduct, the Church of the present age is in the world, and that the Gospel has been entrusted to it for the world. So that the Gospel is not a correlate of either the Church or the world, but rather relates through the Church to the world. There is therefore no real choice” (IRM, April, 1964, p. 210). Scripturally, we remember, we have a clear command to go into the world, make disciples, and baptize them. Does this not imply bringing new members into our churches? The sacrament called for in the Great Commission is not social service but baptism.

It is a good thing that evangelicals in Latin America and elsewhere are becoming more and more concerned for social action, but it is important that we never allow social action to replace evangelism. Christian social action is a witness of love and concern for mankind in general by those who have already, through evangelism, become members of the Body of Christ. Donald McGavran sums the matter up well when he writes, in World Vision Magazine (June, 1965, p. 26): “It is time to recognize that calling all kinds of good actions evangelism simply confuses the issue. Evangelism and social action are distinct and should be used under suitable circumstances. Evangelism creates new churches, new centers of life, new parts of Christ’s Body, which in turn plant other churches.… Social action does not create new centers of life; it is what parts of the existing body do.”

Emotion

So much is said about the emotionally disturbed these days that “emotion” is likely to become a disturbing word. Should one feel deeply about anything, be may fear he has symptoms of physical difficulty. This is especially true about one’s religion; there, We seem to be warned, lies the deadliest emotional quagmire of all.

This obviously is nonsense. Emotion is no more dangerous in religious people than in others. Emotionalism, to be sure, can be destructive for any person, religious or irreligious. But between emotion and emotionalism there is a great gulf fixed. Heaven help us when this is not so, or when we cannot tell the difference between the two!

A person without emotion would be an animated clod, or a monster. Emotion is as much a part of man as his nervous system. The hometown team won’t want you if you are emotionless. Think of trying to run a business, head a government, preach the Gospel, or teach school without feeling!

A mother gazes into her baby’s face with a timeless ecstasy shouting in her look; will you warn her of the emotional trap? Will you admonish the music-lover listening to a stirring symphony to quench any signs of sentiment? Try telling two warm-eyed lovers to eschew all inward ebullition!

Minus emotion, we should put all artists out of business. We are creatures capable of joy and sorrow; we possess a sense of wonder; we are moved by beauty or by ugliness; we respond to pleasure or to pain. To these faculties in us the artist appeals.

And in religion? It has been said that the man who could contact God without emotion would be abnormal.

“Emotion” is not a biblical term. Yet who could go through the Book with unfeelingness? One feels the force of the prophets and poets, the singers and story-tellers. Even the factual report of the primitive Church, the Acts of the Apostles, is journalism on fire.

Who is not moved when the hopeless find hope at Jesus’ touch, or when He whispers from a crosstop, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”? Can we come upon Paul’s mighty poem in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians and have no tiny trumpet sound in us? Can a man be spiritually alive and never feel the wonder and the glory of his God?

Can we confront the Cross, watching the Saviour with outflung arms inviting a worthless world to himself, and not be stirred beyond telling? Who approaches God personally, reaching the great breakthrough into Life, experiencing the knowledge of sins forgiven, and hears no “hallelujahs” in his soul?

T. S. Eliot talked of “hollow men.” Perhaps Paul had such men in mind when he wrote of those who had grown emotionally dead toward God, men “past feeling” who, “having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God,” plunged into sensuality and corruption (Eph. 4:19). Dangerous though emotion may be, insensibility to God’s Spirit is the way to hell.

Said a college professor: “Small wonder the Bible is losing ground in an enlightened age. What an emotionally disturbed lot were the men who wrote it!” And he “proved” his argument by pointing out certain passages in the Book. There was David, watering his couch with his tears (Ps. 6:6). Jeremiah wished his eyes were a tearful fountain (Jer. 9:1). And what a weeper was the man from Tarsus (Acts 20:19; 2 Cor. 2:4)!

We can scarcely keep from wondering how that college professor might have stood up if he were thrust under the same pressure as Paul. He might have remained emotionless; but could he have written the Book of Romans? Dry-eyed, he might have been hard put to manage his life better than “weeping” Jeremiah. After all, is there any scientific proof that a good cry ever hurt anybody—even a college professor? We shiver to think what the Bible might be, had it been written by men without feeling. Christian stoics may exist; but none is ever mentioned in the Scriptures.

“There is,” said an academic mind in long-ago Jerusalem, “a lime to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones.” But the old scholar was well-rounded, so he also said, “There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh … a time to love, and a time to hate” (Eccles. 3). One might pick up stones or toss them away and not feel deeply about it. But weeping, laughing, loving, hating—these are emotional.

Christianity is not emotionalism. It is often concerned with stone-gathering, or with getting rid of stones. It is not preoccupied with men’s feelings; yet neither does it disregard or reject them. The Church that is directed to do everything in decency and in order is also commanded to be fervent in spirit. Through the miracle of grace and the dynamic of the Spirit, emotion is set into redemptive motion in that Kingdom where human sensibilities are never ignored. Jesus wept. He also went to Calvary.—LON WOODRUM, Hastings, Michigan.

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