The social gospel.

SOCIAL GOSPEL 'soʊ.ʃəl 'gɑs.pəl noun. A Protestant movement which tries to apply uniquely (or superficially) Christian perspectives and ethics to civic problems, particularly through charitable programs or government.

If you asked an American Christian the 1800s what the End Times consisted of, you’d quickly discover these folks held the postmillennialist view: They believed the millennium, the time period in which Jesus personally rules the world, takes place before his second coming.

I know; this is a really hard idea for today’s Christians to wrap their brains around. Jesus returns after the millennium? How’s humanity supposed to have a millennium of peace and love before the Prince of Peace takes over and runs things himself? Have you seen humanity? We’re awful.

Yet that’s what Christians believed. It’s what their churches taught, and they swallowed it whole, same as today’s Christians swallow Darbyism without ever asking, “Waitaminnit, why do their End Times charts have this big ol’ period where God turns off the miracles?” People were used to the idea… and they figured it was up to them to create the millennial kingdom; a thousand-year Reich in which everything would be good and perfect. In 1933 Germany even elected a nationalist chancellor who promised them this very thing; ask them how that worked out for them.

After the world wars, very few Christians continued to believe in postmillennialism. There are exceptions… and sometimes we still sing postmillennialist hymns without realizing it. Check out the lyrics to “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations”—my churches used to sing that song well into the 1980s.

But back when that worldview was popular, Christians figured it was our duty to tackle civic problems, fix society, and bring about that millennium. Charles M. Sheldon’s novel In His Steps is a good example of their thinking: Apply the question “What would Jesus do?” to all of society. Then reform society wherever you think it appropriate.

• “If Jesus pastored my church he’d lead it like this.”
• “If Jesus owned my business he’d run it like this.”
• “If Jesus ran for office he’d say this.”
• “If Jesus taught my kids he’d teach them this.”

And so on.

Because these reforms tend to be more forgiving, more equitable, more charitable, more gracious—and more expensive, and create way more rules and laws than your average libertarian appreciates, they tend to get painted with the brush of “liberal.” And to be fair, you’re usually gonna find social-gospel reforms and activities among the Christian Left. (Whereas the Christian Right tends to lean nationalist.)

Backlash by political conservatives.

When the social gospel movement began, it quickly took over the progressive wing of the Republican Party. ’Cause in the 1800s, up until the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, the Republicans were the liberal party, and the Democrats were the conservative party. Yep, times have changed a lot.

The social gospel still addresses economic, racial, and gender inequality. It tries to mitigate poverty, and eliminate homelessness, child labor, prostitution and human trafficking, slums and skid rows and substandard living conditions, alcoholism and drug addiction, poor schools, poor healthcare and prisons, and poor nutrition. Often it encourages organized labor, pacifism, and political activism. And often it encourages laws which ban destructive behaviors, and programs which address these issues—agencies to monitor food and drugs, housing and urban development, alcohol and tobacco, education, labor, veterans’ affairs, and so forth.

The social gospel was the mission of most Christians in the United States till the 1950s, when the civil rights movement began. That’s when the Christian Right started to get organized, and their emphasis was more on preserving segregation. When they lost that fight in the 1970s, they switched causes, and now fight abortion and homosexuality. And because it’s been more than 50 years since social-gospel issues have come up in their churches, some of them have no idea their churches were ever connected with it in any way.

Which is why, in the past 20 years, “the social gospel” became a buzzword among American political conservatives. Certain TV and radio commentators insist it’s a scam; it’s a way to disguise the liberal agenda as Christianity, and trick us Christians into supporting it, either financially through our churches, through our direct actions, or by supporting certain government social programs. “If your church starts preaching the social gospel,” they warn, “leave that church. It’s preaching a false gospel.”

Bear in mind most of these commentators are pretty lousy Christians. As you can tell when you look at their fruit. They don’t promote Jesus at all… unless he appears to support their politics, or unless they want to pander to Christians. Generally they assume Jesus is as conservative as they. But while he does have a conservative view about sin and its consequences, he’s nothing like they.

And much of the social gospel is actually a politically conservative view. Prison, school, and criminal justice reform are hardly just progressive issues. Banning prostitution, drug use, human trafficking, and pornography has just as many conservatives backing them as progressives. One of the Democratic Party’s dirty little secrets is how many Democrats want, just as much as conservatives, to be rid of abortion—although they’re certainly not agreed that an outright ban is the solution. But the prolife movement crosses political boundaries same as Christianity does, for precisely the same reason: What would Jesus do?

Gotta ditch the utopian thinking behind it.

I grew up conservative, and I remember a lot of my fellow conservatives complaining about social-gospel ideas as “too utopian.” And let’s be fair: A lot of progressives co-opt the social gospel movement to promote utopian ideas.

Modernism is a very popular worldview which insists all the world’s problems can be solved by optimism, science, technology, and liberal ideas. Think of Star Trek shows from the 1960s to 2000s; they’re as modernist as anything. That’s the fans’ objections to the Star Trek shows since 2017: Today’s writers are postmodernist, not modernist; they doubt the wide-eyed optimistic modernism of the past, ’cause they realize human nature doesn’t work that way. Likewise conservatives doubt the wide-eyed optimism of social gospel warriors for much the same reason.

But we mustn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater: Yeah, the utopian postmillennialist ideas are bunk. But we Christians were created to do good deeds. Ep 2.10 When we legitimately believe in Jesus, we’re gonna help people. We’re need to help the needy. We can’t just sit on our hands and do nothing; faith without works is dead.

So our various End Times theories really shouldn’t be the reason we try to reform society. Nor are they the excuse to let things rot and fester around us while we wait for Jesus to take over. We gotta help the needy.

The commentators who denounce the social gospel, don’t understand this. They presume they’re Christian, and because the social gospel goes against their personal belief, they presume it goes against Jesus’s beliefs too. Funny how much he thinks exactly like they do. So they try to get their listeners to follow them as they “follow Christ,” go to dead churches like theirs (assuming they go to church at all, and aren’t at home watching Sunday morning chat shows) and do nothing.

Yeah, I said dead churches. When a church does nothing for its community, and tell the needy, “Hope everything works out for you; God bless,” Jm 2.16 it’s dead faith; it’s a dead church. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” Mt 6.10 KJV It’s hypocrisy to pray it, yet never do it. If we’re trying to do as Jesus wants, and be his hands and feet in this world, we need to consider what in this world he’d change if he were us. (It’d be a lot.) Then act on it.

If our politics, not Jesus, is the real reason for our social-gospel activities—progressive or conservative; makes no difference—then yes, there’s a huge deficiency in our “gospel,” for it’s not Christ’s. And yes, there are activists in both political wings who don’t care a whit about Christ’s agenda. You can tell who they are; their personal lack of fruit (of moral character, honesty, love, compassion, and so forth) reveals they’re hardly doing it for Jesus. I’ve met plenty of fake Christians in every charity I’ve worked for. And plenty of real ones. We irritate the fakes, ’cause we’re not willing be immoral, to do just anything, for the sake of the cause. ’Cause Christ is our cause.

And just as we irritate the fakes in the movement, we irritate the fakes outside it, who rail against the social gospel on their talk shows because they don’t know Christ either.