Introduction:

Last night I watched, via livestreaming video over the web, a debate hosted by the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity International University between Jim Wallis and Al Mohler on the topic of whether "social justice" is "integral" to the "mission of the church." If you are at all familiar with these two personas, you will immediately recognized which one represented the affirmative and which one advocated the negative. Jim Wallis is the best-selling author of God's Politics and President/CEO of Sojourners, which this year celebrates 40 years of "articulat[ing] the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world." Al Mohler is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—the "flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention"—and one of the largest seminaries in the world. Mohler is also an author of several books.

The debate topic is not a new one; it has plagued the church in the US for nearly a hundred years. In fact, the fear of the so-called "Social Gospel" came up several times during the course of the debate. However, most Christians of my generation (age 30 and younger) have little idea what this label even represents. Historically, the "Social Gospel" emerged long before the Civil Rights movement, the Charismatic movement, the "church-growth" movement and many, many other movements that have helped shape contemporary US evangelicalism over the last century. So, at best, it's odd that Mohler regularly refers to this enemy of which a large portion of his audience are mostly ignorant. In contrast, however, Mohler stands knee-deep in the center of a movement that is currently attempting to dominate US evangelicalism: New Calvinism.

The New Calvinists are everywhere these days. I'm even currently reading Against Calvinism (Review Coming Soon) by Roger Olson which is specifically occasioned by the rise of this movement—the movement Collin Hansen dubbed the "young, restless, and Reformed." These Calvinists have not only reasserted that their systematic soteriology (TULIP) is biblical, but that it is "The Gospel." This assertion has led to the rise of evangelical churches distinguishing themselves from other evangelical churches by saying they are "Gospel-centered," and this belief has been promoted by the New Calvinists' favorite organization: The Gospel Coalition. Therefore, it is no surprise that this debate regularly revolved around the definition of "the Gospel." In order to clearly answer a question regarding the mission of the church, both participants agreed that defining the Gospel is an essential task. Yet their respective definitions were radically different.

In this post, I'd like to briefly outline both Mohler and Wallis' definitions of the Gospel, present an argument for why Mohler's view amounts to Soul-Body Dualism, and then teach from Luke 19.1-10 that social justice is integral to the Gospel.

Mohler's Gospel:

Mohler very clearly communicated that he believes social justice is not integral to the Gospel. For him, "the Gospel" is entirely encapsulated in the message of salvation preached by the apostles in the early church. Jesus Christ died for sinners, in their place, for their forgiveness. According to Mohler, this message of salvation is also entirely captured by the Reformation formula of "justification by grace through faith in Christ alone." For him, nothing beyond this message can be considered essential to "the Gospel."

That is not to say Mohler disavows justice completely. No, Mohler explained that once the church has carried out its mission of preaching the Gospel of personal justification, he expects that the Christians who are produced by this transformational work will naturally want to help those in need of justice and compassion. Why Mohler makes such a strange assumption is not at all clear. One could only assume that the Christians formed by such an evangelistic program would be taught the definition of the Gospel which led to their evangelization. Once these new Christians are taught that justice is not integral to the Gospel, what then remains to motivate them toward justice and compassion. Perhaps Mohler assumes there will always be Christians like Jim Wallis around to teach and lead them in the ways of biblical justice. But regardless of why Mohler makes such an out-of-place conclusion, he nevertheless makes clear that he believes the church's mission is singular: to proclaim the message of salvation (as he understands it in light of the Reformation formula), and that issues of justice and compassion are secondary if not entirely unecessary.

Wallis' Gospel:

In contrast, Wallis makes it clear that for him social justice is integral to the Gospel. Wallis cites Jesus' Nazareth sermon (Luke 4.14-30), which he calls his "mission statement", in which Jesus identifies himself as Israel's Messiah by claiming to fulfill Isaiah's messianic prophecy. This prophecy clearly teaches that the Messiah would bring about holistic transformation: both personal and social. Wallis argues that if the church is to carry on and carry out the mission of Jesus in the world, her mission must be as holistic as is the Masters'. Wallis also argues that when Peter instructs Christians to be ready with a defense of the faith when asked for a reason for the hope they have (I Peter 3.15), the apostle assumes the believers lives of service will evoke the "Why?" question from the world.

Wallis grew up in Detroit and was personally transformed when he placed his faith in Jesus at a young age in his parent's Plymouth Brethren church. However, in his teens, when Wallis began interacting with the extreme economic disparity in his city between blacks and whites, he was met with opposition from this church. Faith in Jesus, they admonished him, was private; issues of class, economic disparity, and racism are political. What is social, he was taught, was not the Christian's concern.

Perhaps needless to say, Wallis rejected this explanation of the Christian faith and set out on a life-long journey to search the Scriptures in community with other believers to find out what it means to live as followers of Jesus in this broken world. Along the way, Wallis has had many mentors. But perhaps chief among them for the development of his theology of the Gospel has been the Black Church. Wallis attributes his holistic view of the Gospel to the Black churches that adopted him as a young Christian and showed him that the Gospel not only transforms an individual person's soul, but also transforms entire communities.

Wallis is not alone either. In the course of the debate he enlisted quite a few Christian figures in his service: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., William Wilberforce, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and perhaps most damning of all: John Stott. Each of these, Wallis contended, viewed the Gospel has necessarily entailing social justice.

Against Dualism:

When I was in Bible college, I was often chastised for my outspokenness against what I viewed to be the inconsistency of the school's stated mission and the reality of the school's actual ministry. The school I attended prided itself on training ministers for urban ministry. However, none of the full-time or administrative staff lived within the city limits. In fact, the school itself was situated in a middle-class suburb. Nevertheless, I vividly recall one of my professors who had served for many years as a missionary in China teaching us, "The Gospel you preach here in the US has to be the same Gospel you would preach to bloated bellies in Calcutta." This strong message is clear: We cannot have a comfortable and convenient Gospel that fits our lifestyle here in the US that does not square with the severe physical suffering of human beings in the developing world. To take this a step further, the same can be said about the injustices and material needs we find right here in the US. What kind of Gospel ignores their needs? This is precisely the problem with Mohler's "gospel": it is colored by everything that makes it inadequate to be the Gospel for the whole world. It is colored by white privilege, by first world privilege, by Western Enlightenment Rationalism, and by Euro-centric ethnocentrism.

The Gospel that Jesus preached is a Gospel of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is a new way of being in the world, a new community of people submitted to the King, and new reality carved out of the world called Shalom. The Gospel that Jesus preached is God restoring all things, making all things right, for those who have been wronged, starting right now! The Gospel that Jesus preached was one of God's healing, reconciling, restoring, and preserving power being displayed in the world through his covenant people. Jesus' Gospel includes transformed individuals but is not limited to them alone. Jesus' Gospel is also the proclamation that the whole world is being transformed by God's love.

Not long after Jesus' earthly ministry was complete and he commanded his church (the new, kingdom community he established) to carry on and carry out his mission in the world, the message of the Gospel began to get distorted. Some early Christians began to develop beliefs that were influenced by Plato's philosophies. In Plato's thinking, reality was a gradation. Some things were "more real" than others. For example, Plato believed that "forms" existed in an unseen realm which governed the material world. These "forms," Plato theorized, were "more real" than their material "shadows" we see here on earth. When these beliefs began to be combined with Christian teaching, it lead to what we now call "Gnosticism." Gnosticism took many forms, but the most common forms were both errors of Soul-Body Dualism. First, the Gnostics developed a belief in "secret knowledge" that was the actual means of an individual's salvation. A person was saved by possessing this special "gnosis" or knowledge. Since knowledge was what saved a person, knowledge was all that was important in this schema. The practice of the Way of Jesus was not important. The second way in which Gnosticism manifested Soul-Body Dualism was in the belief that the individual's soul was their "true self," more "real" than their bodies. This led to the mistreatment of peoples bodies and even the justification of sin performed "in the body."

When Al Mohler teaches that the Gospel is primarily and exclusively concerned with the individual's salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, he unwittingly falls into the error of Soul-Body Dualism. By eliminating the social dimension of the Gospel, he effectively renders the bodily implications of salvation's transformative properties irrelevant. All that matters in this schema is the knowledge or experience of the individual.

When Economic Justice Saves Souls:

In Luke 19, Jesus shared a meal and a conversation with Zacchaeus, a tax collector and a person considered a "sinner." In verse 9 Jesus boldly proclaims "Today salvation has come to this house…" Such a statement makes us think of the Reformation formula of justification by grace through faith in Christ alone. Surely Jesus is here taking about that instant experience of justification we Protestants love to talk about. Surely Jesus is stating that Zacchaeus has been regenerated. So, naturally, we US evangelicals would assume what precedes verse 9 is a lengthy exposition by Zacchaeus on his systematic theology regarding Jesus and his attributes. Surely Zacchaeus must have just explained that he affirms Jesus' divinity, his status as the second Person of the triune Godhead, his nature as fully God and fully man …right?? Well, maybe that's too advanced for poor Zacchaeus. But surely what preceded such a bold proclamation was Zacchaeus' stated belief in Jesus as Israel's Messiah, right?

Nope. None of that.

What precedes Jesus' proclamation of salvation over Zacchaeus' entire household was Zacchaeus' contrite pledge to repay all those he had defrauded through his unjust occupation.

Take a second to let that sink in.

The only thing Zacchaeus promises is to repay the people he has cheated. This pledge of social justice was the outward sign of an inward transformation that had taken place in Zacchaeus' heart. Jesus' Gospel for Zacchaeus wasn't just information, it was transformation. Jesus' Gospel for Zacchaeus necessarily involved social justice. It was holistic.

Conclusion:

To follow Jesus as his disciples, we must proclaim and demonstrate Jesus' Gospel. We must have a Gospel that does not need to be modified when it is lived out either in Beverly Hills or Calcutta. We must have a Gospel that does not bifurcate the mission of the church and prioritizes only the soul above the whole human being. The Gospel we are called to take into all the world is a holistic Gospel of God's mission to remake the world, to heal, to liberate, to empower, and to reconcile. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is cross-shaped—it has both a vertical and a horizontal dimension.