Archive for the ‘Social Action’ Category

Posted on February 8, 2011 - by Stephen Murray

The Roots of the Social Gospel?

A common line of rhetoric that I’ve encountered when talking about the issue of gospel proclamation vs. doing mercy and justice is to point back to the Social Gospel as a case in point where priorities were not correctly upheld and the church slipped into a gospel that was in fact no gospel at all. But is that the reality? Did the rise of the Social Gospel occur because of vigorous debate concerning priorities?

A brief reading of the history of the Social Gospel quickly shows this not to be the case at all but rather that the Social Gospel had it’s roots firmly anchored in higher criticism and theological liberalism. This was not a bunch of evangelicals debating with each other on how best to reflect the heart of God to their society, it was a bunch of ministers and leaders dissulussioned with the authority, infallibility and reliability of Scripture – men who doubted original sin, penal substitution and a host of other doctrines key to historic evangelical and reformed faith.

So I’m not so sure I’d use the line ‘…but we lost it once before’ in attempt to safe guard the priority of gospel proclamation over doing mercy and justice. As I pointed out last week, I think there’s a better way to approach the issue.

Posted on September 22, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Generous Justice

The good people at Redeemer City to City were kind enough to send me a sneak peak into Tim Keller’s forthcoming (November 2010) book, Generous Justice. If you’re familiar with Keller’s preaching and teaching ministry you’ll be well aware of how central the idea of ‘doing justice’ is to much of Redeemer’s philosophy of ministry. Here’s the product description from Amazon:

It is commonly thought in secular society that the Bible is one of the greatest hindrances to doing justice. Isn’t it full of regressive views? Didn’t it condone slavery? Why look to the Bible for guidance on how to have a more just society? But Timothy Keller sees it another way. In Generous Justice, Keller explores a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace: a generous, gracious justice. Here is a book for believers who find the Bible a trustworthy guide as well as those who suspect that Christianity is a regressive influence in the world.

Keller’s church, founded in the eighties with fewer than one hundred congregants, is now exponentially larger. More than five thousand people regularly attend Sunday services, and another twenty-five thousand download Keller’s sermons each week. A recent profile in New York magazine described his typical sermon as “a mix of biblical scholarship, pop culture, and whatever might have caught his eye in The New York Review of Books or on Salon.com that week.” In short, Timothy Keller speaks a language that many thousands of people yearn to comprehend. In Generous Justice, he offers them a new understanding of modern justice and human rights.

On the eve of the Lausanne Congress here in Cape Town this looks like it will be an important book by a leading practitioner as evangelicalism continues to consider its mission to the global populace. For a sample have a read the first chapter of the book here.