social concerns

D.A. Carson spoke recently at Bethlehem Baptist Church. One of the points he covered was the perceived trend in our churches to be consumed by social concern. Is the Gospel plus caring for the poor an inseparable couplet? The writer of the post provides the following report (emphasis mine).

He [Carson] cautioned that if the gospel was merely assumed (and not clearly articulated), our passion for social justice would overshadow the gospel. While we are not intentionally exalting social concern over the gospel, people learn what we are excited about (gospel over caring for the poor). Carson warned, "Our passion must first be the gospel and not assume it to be understood." He continued, "We must be careful to keep the gospel central and not turn our responses to the gospel as the main target."

Furthermore, Carson exhorted these Christian leaders to spend our time on prayer and the ministry of the Word and allow our people to begin and maintain efforts in social concern. He said we must distinguish between what the church as church must do and what the community of believers in the church must do (I did not personally see the difference but it seemed to suggest that the pastor was exempt from exemplifying an outpouring of the gospel into the community through social efforts).

Our calling, Carson said is to do good in the city (Jer. 29), because the person has an eternal destiny and we care for them. We are all poor beggars telling other poor beggars where they can find bread. Don concluded this section by warning us not to make the issues of gospel and social concern antithetical.

This writer rightly cautions that we should take care that the pastor is not perceived as exempt from doing the work of the Kingdom. At the same time I don't think (based on the report) this was Carson's point. I understand him to say our social action is not a church program. Instead, social action is a necessary outflow of a community properly engaged in the Gospel. As a Church (and even as individual believers), our passion is the Gospel. Subsequent evidence of this is our passion to set free all who are in any kind of bondage to the kingdom of darkness. This includes not only spiritual freedom but financial, emotional, physical, etc. freedom. And this manifests both in the miraculous and the non-miraculous, i.e., the use of the common means that God has provided us with. But the point is the priority. Many are more in love with serving others than Christ-likeness. Many are so in love with serving others in their practical needs that in the overall narrative they fail to address spiritual needs. And many others, while not falling into that trap, because they fail to communicate the real drive behind our action, they are raising up a generation that misses the point.

I've made this point before and I'll restate, not all good works are Kingdom works.