I’ve been holding out on posting this until I was chill out a bit and think about it without simply ranting. I think I’m there today, helped by a link posted by a friend(/mentor/coworker/boss).
Albert Mohler: Glenn Beck, Social Justice, and the Limits of Public Discourse
Mohler does a good job of weighing out the history behind the “Social Gospel” in the past 103 years. The Social Gospel movement in the Christian church has been one that has removed the Gospel of eternal salvation and replaced it with a “Gospel” of charity work and social justice politicking.
I suggest that everyone reads his article as he points out some things that need to be pointed out, particularly in the realm of the limits of public discourse (hence the title of his post). But he misses on some things and on them he misses by a wide margin.
First, the smaller, he doesn’t differentiate effectively between social justice and the “Social Gospel.” Though the Social Gospel movement is concerned about social justice, it does not have the corner on the Church’s concern for social justice.
Second, I think he grossly misstates the New Testament’s instructions on Christian-faith based social justice (emphasis mine):
The New Testament is stunningly silent on any plan for governmental or social action. The apostles launched no social reform movement.
(Mohler does agree later that we are supposed to seek justice at some level, but he apparently bases this on nothing in particular.)
I felt the need to break up this post, since it was so long, the rest of this post will be up tomorrow morning.
