Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Gospel Is Social, But The Social Gospel Isn't Good News

Denny Burk:

Russell Moore has a great piece on the social gospel in the latest 9Marks journal. Among other things, he asks and answers the question whether the emerging church represents a revival of the social gospel.

He writes:

“The doctrinal left wing of the ‘emerging’ movement isn’t clarifying the doctrinal content of Christianity, but using, it seems, cunning words to downplay this doctrinal content in order to substitute a social program there instead. This can—and has—happened on the political right as well as on the political left, and with the same kind of wreckage left in its wake. . .


“Let’s remember that the gospel is social but the social gospel isn’t good news. And a church that embraces it, ‘emerging’ or otherwise, will not long be a church.”
This is a really helpful article, and you can read the rest of it here.

2 comments:

Jason Kanz said...

I read this earlier. I love this piece!

jordan said...

Thanks for the post Zack. I picked up our latest Portland Monthly Magazine today and it has a unique (and scary) article entitled - Jesus's Favorite City: A group of emerging liberal Christian leaders is rethinking GOD—in Portland's image.

I googled "social gospel" and your post came up second on the list! Man, you're getting big-time.

The social gospel is attractive in many regards but it is not the gospel. Thanks for the reminder!