In an article by that title, Stan Guthrie has some good food for thought for the contemporary American Church:
Right now our passion for social issues of all kinds is ascendant. And indeed, our old, narrow, world-rejecting fundamentalism needed a decent burial.
Today, it’s great to see how much easier it is to draw crowds by organizing a conference dealing with race, anti-Semitism, abortion, Darfur, homosexual marriage, sex trafficking, AIDS, or environmental stewardship. Loving our neighbor via these issues is right and good. And our newfound activism also can help make the gospel we preach attractive to outsiders. As Jesus said, “[L]et your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
But it seems harder for us to get excited about evangelism. Our holistic mission has a hole in it—not enough evangelism. For instance, while the American population continues growing, our own evangelical numbers barely tread water.
Is there a connection between our rediscovered social passion and our growing evangelistic indifference? History certainly provides ample warning, if the Student Volunteer Movement is any guide. Organized in 1888, the SVM boasted a great motto: “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” But according to scholar Paul Pierson, the SVM began stumbling under “a desire to tackle the problems of Western society coupled with doubts about the validity of world evangelization.” By 1940, “It had ceased to be a factor in students’ religious life and in the promotion of mission in the churches.” A greatly diminished SVM was finally disbanded in 1969.
…Does our heightened social consciousness—from the Left and the Right—actually drain our evangelistic zeal? It shouldn’t, because we are called to do both.
But maybe our preference for social activism reveals a more basic problem: that we don’t really believe our neighbor’s deepest need is to be forgiven by and reconciled to God. We seem to think that if only he or she is fed, or lives in a society brimming with Christian principles, or sees our battles against the world’s many injustices, then we will have discharged our responsibility to Christ.
I’m not sure Jesus would agree. “For what does it profit a man,” the Lord asks, “if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” May our concern to make a difference in this world not blind us to our neighbors’ eternal destiny in the next.
Read the whole thing
