Yesterday, Pastor JD Greear began a new sermon series entitled Cannonball, a study of the book of Acts. JD spoke passionately about the mission of the Church. He pointed out two errors he had observed in various churches. Some churches hyper-focus on social ministries and/or social action in an attempt to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. In such churches the preaching of the gospel gets crowded out. Others avoid social ministries altogether and focus exclusively on preaching the gospel as a passport out of this earth. JD believes that churches should proclaim the Gospel and engage in social ministries as signs of the King’s presence, pointing to the ultimate establishment of His Kingdom.
The first error identified by JD is not limited to so-called liberals. It has become common for conservative evangelicals to align ourselves with other social conservatives in promoting our moral agenda through social and/or political action. While the church has a prophetic responsibility to expose immorality, we take great risk when we align ourselves with those who are not committed to the gospel. First, the lost are likely to perceive us as bullies. This is inevitable because so-called allies who preach moralism apart from the gospel are bullies. They are no different from the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned. Secondly (and this is the greater risk), Christians begin to lose the distinction between living out the gospel and living under the law. We start to look like the Galatian church: “After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” (Galatians 3:3, NIV). Evangelicals are known historically for preaching the gospel and calling it evangelism. Shall we become known for preaching the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and calling it discipleship? Does the gospel make any difference? I invite your comments.
I believe this is just an extension of the argument we had awhile ago (think: Huckabee) where I was adamant against leglislating morality so as not to lull people into a false sense of moral adequacy. Genuine increase in the morality of a society should come (in my opinion) purely from a change of heart in the members of that society and not one bit from a change of legal requirements forced upon it.
Are you the John Wallace that graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic? If you are, “Go Gang Green.” If not, sorry for bothering you.
Dave Miller
Yes! Remember Dave, when were praying for the Conservative Resurgence in our little dorm room at PBAC back in 1976, long before that meeting at the Cafe Du Monde. I still tell people that Dave Miller started the CR.