Social Gospel, Etc. (for Mark Pepin)

[Bruce Gourley]

Good morning, Mark P! I read your latest response to me in the "Question for Rob" thread, and when it turned out to be about 10 printed pages long, I decided it was time to distill the post and start a new thread more on subject. So here goes.

The essence of what our discussions have, eventually, centered on is what you derisively call the "social gospel." I am going to address that in a moment, but first your claim that America "was founded upon the heavy influence of Christianity."

Well, the best way I know to respond to that is to point out that our Baptist forefathers would have heartily disagreed. Our Baptist forefathers worked very hard to ensure that America was founded as a secular nation. Why? Because they had been consistently persecuted (beaten, whipped, pulled from the pulpit, stoned, jailed, put in the stocks, their children taken away from them, and much more) by so-called "Christian" colonial state governments. They, more than any other group of people (secular or religious) wanted to make certain that the new American nation was NOT founded upon religious principles and DID remain detached from promoting religion. And they were ultimatley successful in their efforts. Interestingly, when the American Revolution was over, and the new American Constitution and government established, European nations were shocked (scandalized would be a better word) that this new upstart nation was NOT founded as a Christian nation. In fact, they claimed that America was an atheist nation, because God was left out of her constitution.

NOW, on the other side of the coin ... yes, there was a Christian influence in the founding of our country, for Baptists were Christians. Not only that, the underlying moral codes of America (and the other western nations of the time) were at least loosely based on Judea-Christian morality ... which in turn shared similarities with other ancient faiths' moral codes.

Now, on to the main course: the social Gospel which you so disdain.

1) Let's start with abortion. Your claim that I claim that "abortion in general as a concept is anti-Biblical." Those are your words, not mine. Abortion as a concept is not anti-Biblical, but it is extra-biblical, other than the sole biblical reference to abortion (have you found it yet? a hint: it is early on in the OT).

2) Now, as to your question of "Where do you find Biblical justification for tying salvation to the helping the poor?", I will again point you to Matthew 25. You see, I tend to be conservative, and in such a framework I tend to interpret Scripture in light of the "plain meaning." Matthew 25 clearly talks about heaven and hell, and how one gets to heaven or hell. But I'll tell you what: I would be grateful if you could interpret that passage in such a way as to avoid Jesus' discussion of salvation and damnation, for it would make me personally feel better. On the other hand, only a liberal interpretation of that passage would move the focus away from salvation and damnation, and I prefer to avoid such liberalism.

3) Your disparaing comments on the social gospel in general: just what is it that Jesus did on earth? Heal the sick, preach release for the prisoners, feed the hungry, go the prostitutes, etc., etc. If you remove Jesus' social gospel actions from the Gospels (and perhaps you want to), you have, well, maybe 25% of the Gospels left. Is that what you really want?

4) Now, as to your lamentation that to be obedient to Jesus' call to meet the needs of the world's downtrodden, you would have to sell everything you own and it would "take a complete upheavel in our way of living": congratulations. You are grasping the Gospel. It IS a complete upheavel of our way of living! What we say is not nearly as important as what we do, according to Jesus.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed a radical thing ... much more radical than most Christians want it to be ... and so radical that it is scary to most conservatives, and so they ignore much of it.

[rickwright01]

[Bruce Gourley]

[rickwright01]

[Mark Pepin]

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[Mark Pepin]

[Mark Pepin]

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