A Theology of the Social Gospel
By George “Chip” Hammond
The Social Gospel has been a favorite whipping boy of Evangelicals. They see it, loath it, and decry it in movements like Liberation Theology, Christian Socialism, and organizations like the World Council of Churches. If you were to ask most Evangelicals what the Social Gospel is, however, the best they could probably do would be to mumble something about “liberalism.” If you asked most Evangelicals to define “liberalism,” they would most likely give you a political definition, though perhaps some might be savvy enough to include things like a denial of the authority of the Scripture or the substitutionary atonement of Christ.
I say “has been the favorite whipping boy,” because among young Evangelicals Christian Socialism is gaining ground. This has been alarming and puzzling to their Evangelical parents. They can’t fathom why their children are drawn away from the status quo of the churches they grew up in and benefited from, churches which pronounced that status quo sanctified. “Did they not learn anything from us?” In fact, they did. They learned to be Social Gospelers. They learned that the words “gospel” and “Kingdom of God” are just code words for obtaining our own political, societal, social, and economic desires. They simply have a different set of desires than their parents.
What exactly is the Social Gospel? The Social Gospel had its origins at the end of the nineteenth century into the early twentieth. Its architects were people like Josiah Strong, Richard Ely, and Walter Rauschenbusch, whose A Theology for the Social Gospel became emblematic of the movement. Following the optimism that arose from the Reformation, the Renaissance, the discovery of the New World, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and an upwardly mobile middle class, the original Social Gospelers were, like nearly all western Protestant Christians, post-millennial. They believed that Christ would return to earth only after the earth was essentially rid of its evils. Laudably, the Social Gospelers turned their eyes to the evils that many (comfortable) Christian people turned a blind eye to: social injustice and inequity, racism, poverty, slums and tenements and lack of basic sanitary conditions, abuse of labor and child labor, poor schools for certain segments of the population, etc.
Social Gospelers believed that they had to “bring in the Kingdom” by addressing and correcting these conditions before Christ would return. This was to be done, not through the preaching of the gospel (see Marx’s reference to “the opiate of the masses” – the idea that religion is a con to make people accept their egregious circumstances), but through social activism, legislative pressure, and political action.
The original Social Gospelers tended to be on the “progressive” and “liberal” side of issues. Some of these issues would still be opposed by modern “conservatives,” though some would be embraced by them (eg. you’d be hard pressed to find a conservative today who promotes racial segregation, and the idea that people of color are naturally inferior to Caucasians). But their political and even many of their theological views are ancillary to the Social Gospel as such. At its core, what make the Social Gospel distinct from historically practiced Christianity is the disbelief that we are to reach one heart, one soul at a time by the preaching of the gospel of Christ, and instead are to focus our efforts on engaging in social activism, legislative pressure, and political action.
Even in the Modernist Controversy of the early twentieth century there were people who characterized themselves as being against Modernism and the Social Gospel who in fact fully embraced them. They mistook the “accidents” of the Social Gospel and Modernism (theological liberalism) with the “essence” of the Social Gospel and Modernism (social activism, legislative pressure, and political action for the former; and the insufficiency of the gospel as originally proclaimed and the insufficiency of Scriptures to address modern problems).
An example of this is seen in an early schism in the newly formed Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936. Prohibition (1920) came about because of the action of the Social Gospelers, but was supported by many “conservative” Christians because they saw the evils that alcoholism inflicted on the families they ministered to. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the repeal was bemoaned by many “conservatives.”
Those who really understood the gospel and accepted the authority of the Bible had never been in favor of Prohibition because while the Scriptures condemn drunkenness (1 Corinthians 6:10, Galatians 5:21), they present wine as a blessing from God (Psalm 104:15; Proverbs 3:7-10). Most of them were not bothered by Prohibition – earthly kingdoms can do what they want, and it was not essential that they drink alcohol – but they were not in favor of it.
When Prohibition ended, there was a movement by “conservative” Evangelicals to keep it alive in the church. When I was a young Christian, I attended churches that, as a condition for leadership, and in some cases for membership, one had to make a promise of total abstinence from the use of any alcoholic beverage.
Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and the following year the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was formed. Shortly afterward, Prohibition’s continuation in the church would become an issue. J. Oliver Buswell, Carl McIntire, and Allan MacRae had argued that probation of the use of any alcohol must be imposed on church members. John Murray and Cornelius Van Til argued that while drunkenness must be condemned there was no grounds in the Bible to bind the conscience in that way. Buswell, McIntire, and MacRae agreed that the Bible did not require total abstinence but believed that the state of the modern world demanded it. Without realizing it, Buswell, McIntire, and MacRae embraced the very Modernism that they had fought, though not over the same issues. While not theologically liberal, they nonetheless agreed with the essential element of Modernism: The gospel as originally presented, and the Word of God as delivered are insufficient for the situations of the modern world, and the church has an obligation to add to them. The neo-Modernists would not concede, and those faithful to gospel would not bend, so they went their separate ways.
This brings us to present day Evangelicalism’s embracing of the Social Gospel. Baby boomer Evangelicals do not accept the left-leaning politics and most of the socially progressive ideas of the original Social Gospelers, but they heartily embrace the Social Gospel’s essential premise: preaching the gospel to people to change their hearts one-by-one is to be jettisoned, and the new mission of political action, social activism, and legislative pressure is to take its place. It’s an abandoning of the true gospel and of the Kingdom of God that it proclaims in favor of feathering our nest and making a comfortable life for ourselves here and now “in God’s name.”
Evangelicals are surprised that their children see some of the evils of the status quo society, evils which they (the parents) have largely shut their eyes to because it does not personally affect them. Their professing children now have different goals, different agendas, different definitions of the good.
But the socialist hopes of this new crop of Evangelicals will fail, sadly, because the kingdoms of the world are all doomed to fail (Daniel 2:34-40, 1 Corinthians 15:24). The only real solution to be found is to be found for individuals in the gospel – the real gospel, not the Social Gospel.
Their Evangelical parents may be surprised by the dispositions and direction of their children, but they can hardly be surprised by their methods. After all, they were taught to be Social Gospelers by their parents and by the Evangelical churches to which they brought them.
