By Nathan Parry
The horrific murders of George Floyd at the hands of the police has rocked this nation. As it should. The murder of George Floyd has again displayed that America is a place where those with black and brown skin face deep racial injustice.
While one incident like this is enough for outrage, the troubling reality is George Floyd’s death comes with a history of black and brown bodies laid before it. Ahmaud Arbery, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, the list goes on. As those in our nation mourn, protest and continue to labor for justice, I have grown weary seeing Christian responses claiming the work of social activism and the gospel are distinct entities. The responses or arguments often look like this :
“The real way to see social change is to focus on reaching individual people with the gospel message of Jesus and deal with the issues of the heart.”
“The primary problem isn’t racism or injustice. The Apostle Paul speaks about our enemy being Satan and the powers of darkness (Eph. 6:12). This is what we should focus on.”
While these statements have elements of truth, they are troubling in response our current cultural moment. Even when they are well-intentioned, these statements are dangerous in their ability to provide comfortable avenues for our complicity in racism and horrific injustice. A brief dive into history provides numerous examples of the Churches complicity in racial injustice using similar (or the same) arguments. Secondly, these statements provide an extremely one dimensional and deficient understanding of the gospel and its implications.
History
In his letter from the Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. penned these words speaking about his frustration with the Church in its complicity toward racism.
“I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: ‘Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.’ And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.” ¹
Where scripture has been used to bolster racism and bigotry, there has been those using the same scriptures to fight against and abolish these injustices. However, in this letter, Martin Luther King, Jr. makes it clear that a real threat to the Civil Rights Movement were Christians using “pious irrelevancies” and drawing a false dichotomy between the gospel and social activism. Statements like, “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern” allowed Christians to maintain their distance and become complicit in the visceral pain and brokenness of racism.
King saw an inextricable correlation between the gospel of Jesus and his immediate fight to end the unjust laws, murder, abuse and economic disparity plaguing black Americans. Many white Christian contemporaries of King saw his conviction to end these injustices against black people (Which has a 400-year history) as foolishness.
History tends to repeat itself. Similar, but repackaged, opposition to social activism fighting racial injustice still pervades our country and the Church. Although, today it sounds more like the statements I gave at the beginning:
“The way to see social change is to focus on reaching individual people with the gospel message of Jesus and deal with the issues of the heart.”
“The Apostle Paul speaks about our real enemy being Satan and the powers of darkness (Eph. 6:12). This is what we should focus on.”
“Jesus’ main focus wasn’t on politics or social issues.”
“ We will only be able to experience true justice in the future kingdom.”
All of these statements, when used to absolve ourselves from social action against injustice, echo the words of King’s letter: “[This is a social issue], with which the gospel has no real concern.”
The Gospel
Claiming the message and work of the gospel is not concerned with social action presents a one-dimensional and deficient gospel. Tim Keller, in his book Center Church, speaks of the gospel as “not everything, not a simple thing, but affecting everything.” In other words, the gospel is a particular message that has multiple facets and countless implications. For the sake of definition and clarity, the Gospel is the good news of God’s saving and restoring work of humanity and all creation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Christian worldview sees all creation as fundamentally broken by sin and evil entering the world through our rebellion against God (Genesis 3, Romans 1–3). This brokenness now pervades every area of life; the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. It affects individuals, families, communities, cities, countries, systems and structures. In contrast, the Christian worldview also sees the gospel as good news for every one of these areas.
In his book The Mission of God, Christopher Wright speaks of the need for a robust and holistic gospel.
“The fact is that sin and evil constitute bad news in every area of life on this planet. The redemptive work of God through the cross of Christ is good news for every area of life on earth that has been touched by sin, which means every area of life. Bluntly, we need a holistic gospel because the world is a holistic mess.”
As Christians, we lose the holistic nature of the gospel when we emphasize a particular facet or implication of the gospel to the detriment of others. For example, our gospel is deficient when we emphasize the implication of individual spiritual salvation while forgoing the gospel implication to pursue justice, reconciliation and renewal in our communities and city.
But, in what way does the gospel message compel us toward justice and renewal for our community and city? How is the gospel good news for every area of life in the here and now? The truth is the gospel is about more than personal spiritual salvation and restoration, but also about the rule and reign of God embracing the cosmos.²
The Kingdom
The proclamation of the Kingdom of God is implicit in the gospel message. This Kingdom is not just a future hope, but the gospels tell us that the Kingdom of God broke into history through the person and work of Jesus. In Luke 17, Jesus is questioned by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would arrive. He responds:
“The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Luke 17:21
In Matthew 12, Jesus is confronted again by the Pharisees as they question him about his power to cast out demons. He responds similarly.
“But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Matthew 12:28
Jesus makes clear in these interactions (and others) that the Kingdom of God had arrived in his earthly ministry. Christopher Wright again has helpful insight on this topic when he says, “Jesus announced the imminent arrival of the eschatological reign of God. He claimed that his people’s hopes for restoration and for the messianic reversal were being fulfilled in his ministry.”³As Jesus began his ministry, Luke records Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah, which would prophetically illustrate the nature of the Kingdom of God.
He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18–19
The nature of the Kingdom of God manifested in the ministry of Jesus, revealed what it looks like for God’s reign and rule to enter everyday life. Sins were forgiven and the paralysed were made to walk (Mark 2:1–12). Eternal life and concern for the poor were proclaimed in the same breath (Matthew 25:31–46). Grace and mercy were extended while hypocrisy, self-righteousness and injustice were condemned (John 8:1–10). The Love of God was declared the greatest commandment and Love of neighbor its counterpart (Luke 10:25–37).
Jesus displayed the kingdom’s concern with the future and the present; with the spiritual and the material; with the hope-filled consummation of history and a new societal ethic and order now. But what does this mean for Christians today? Was the proclamation and advance of the Kingdom of God relegated to Jesus life and ministry?
“Your Kingdom Come”
When Jesus taught his disciple how to pray he gave them these words:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9–10)”
He taught them to pray in light of the reality that God was bringing his kingdom to bear on earth. This truth was not confined to the ministry of Jesus. The gospels, along with the rest of the New Testament, give us the story of God forming a new community through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. “Individuals become part of a redeemed and redeeming community. They become new people, a holy nation — the ‘body of Christ’ in the world.” ⁴
Jesus himself would commission the pioneers of this community, the Church, to continue His mission to the nations; the mission of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Church would be the hands and feet of Jesus. Jesus’ ministry inaugurated the kingdom of God and the Church would become the means by which it would advance in the world.
As Christian today, we belong to that community. We have been sent, in the power of the Spirit, to advance the same kingdom Jesus inaugurated. This is a phenomenal and encouraging reality. The kingdom resides where the Church is actively being the hands and feet of Jesus. The kingdom of God is not contingent on a particular space in time, but present wherever the rule and reign of God are manifest. Again, Pastor Tim Keller sums it up well:
“…the church is to be an agent of the kingdom. It is not only to model the healing of God’s rule but it is to spread it. “You are . . . a royal priesthood, a holy nation . . . that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Christians go into the world as witnesses of the kingdom (Acts 1:6–8). To spread the kingdom of God is more than simply winning people to Christ. It is also working for the healing of persons, families, relationships, and nations; it is doing deeds of mercy and seeking justice. It is ordering lives and relationships and institutions and communities according to God’s authority to bring in the blessedness of the kingdom.” ⁵
Social Action
For the Christian, laboring against injustice and oppression affecting the black community is not a matter of partisan politics that we can label as left or right. Viewing it this way fails to see the scope of the injustice and history. It is, however, a gospel matter. It is a kingdom matter. Make no mistake, how we listen, learn and engage with this issue reveals what we believe and declare about the gospel. Christians absolving themselves through “pious irrelevancies” during the Civil Rights movement revealed the nature and scope of the gospel they believed. Through lack of social action, as Martin Luther King, Jr. insinuated, they revealed the gospel they believed had no concern for the pain and suffering of their black brothers and sisters; that the kingdom had little relevance to their current oppression.
Proclaiming the gospel is inextricable from social action because the good news also deals with our present, the material, the social order of things. The Gospel is good news concerning racism and injustice, not just because one day God will make all things new (and He will), but because God’s love, power and justice being revealed through His Church is bringing the kingdom to bear on earth now. When Christians strive for justice, care for the poor and pursue freedom for the oppressed, we proclaim a vital part of the gospel. The kingdom is here.
This was originally posted to Nathan’s blog on medium: https://medium.com/@nathanm.parry
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Clinton E. Stockwell, The Urban Face of Mission: Ministering the Gospel in a diverse and changing world, 159
Christopher Wright, The Mission of God,
Clinton E. Stockwell,The Urban Face of Mission: Ministering the Gospel in a diverse and changing world, 159
Timothy J. Keller, Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R), 54.