Editor's Note: Andy Crouch sets up the quote below with these two sentences: "These days I do not often meet Christians so passionate about evangelism that they question the need for doing justice. I am much more likely to meet Christians so passionate about justice that they question the need for evangelism."
Meeting the physical needs of the poor wins attention and affirmation from a watching world. Naming the spiritual poverty of a world enthralled to false gods provokes defensiveness and derision from those who do not even believe there is a god … Our secular neighbors care, many like never before, about relieving human need—and more of them than ever before are indifferent or hostile to the idea that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life and the one who meets the deepest human need. In short, working for justice is cool. Proclaiming the gospel is not.