The Christian Pulpit And Social Problems

By R. B. Kuiper

Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

AN individual gospel and a social gospel are to the minds of many related antithetically. It is thought rather generally that the former is characteristic of orthodoxy, the latter distinctively modernist, and that no preacher can with consistency proclaim both.

It would seem to be worth while to examine this opinion with some care in order to determine whether or not it is tenable. Such a study will of necessity include a consideration of various current views on the proper attitude of the Christian pulpit to social problems. These views will have to be evaluated. Evaluation presupposes a norm. We take as our norm the historic Christian faith founded upon the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the very Word of God and formulated in the great doctrines of the Christian Church, particularly of the churches of the Reformation.

I. The Social Gospel of Liberalism

Walter Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis was published in 1907. That was an event which might almost be described as epoch-making. It gave a powerful impetus to the thinking of churchmen on the relation of the Christian message to the problems of society. There followed a veritable flood of books dealing with that topic. Today the flood is running high. Among the latest works on the subject is D. C. Macintosh’s Social Christianity, but one hesitates to call it or any book the very latest for fear that before one finishes speaking its successor may have come from the press.

From its beginning the movement just described was dominated by liberals. Coupled with that fact is another of great significance. Fundamentalism, particularly American fundamentalism, is largely dispensational. By that is meant that a great many fundamentalists are certain that there will be no restoration of society until the arrival of what they call the kingdom age, that all present efforts in that direction are foredoomed to dismal failure, and that consequently the Christian has no duty in this regard. What else could be expected than that fundamentalist preachers would leave social problems severely alone? With few exceptions they actually do this. On the other hand, the liberal Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America has adopted a Social Creed and announced as its purpose, “to transform society in accordance with Christian ethical ideals”. Thus it has come to pass that liberalism has achieved a virtual monopoly of social preaching. The term social gospel has not only acquired a definitely liberal connotation, but it is no exaggeration to affirm that the social gospel as it is actually being preached is by and large shot through with liberal theology.

To prove this assertion is not difficult. Without an attempt at exhaustiveness conclusive evidence may be adduced. From the viewpoint of historic orthodoxy the social gospel of this day has laid itself wide open to criticism of the most serious kind.

Its starting-point is clearly evolutionistic. That the trend of the times is in the right direction is taken for granted. More specifically, from the fact that a great many influential preachers of the church have in recent years turned to the discussion of social problems in the pulpit the inference is drawn that this is the church’s task. Thousands of prominent preachers cannot be wrong. L. O. Brastow says in effect: The two great subjects of investigation in the nineteenth century were nature and man, natural science and anthropology. Great changes resulted. Social and political changes allied themselves with industrial and commercial changes in thrusting new tasks upon the pulpit. New social, political, and industrial problems are before the world and must be faced by the preacher. And from the fact that such problems are being forced upon the pulpit he concludes that they belong in the pulpit.[1] Rauschenbusch voices the conviction that “through the evolution of the Christian spirit in the Church it has now arrived at a stage in its development where it is fit and free for its largest social mission”.[2] If, for the sake of argument, the conclusion of these writers be granted, their premise must be rejected as unconvincing, to say the least. Perhaps social problems should be discussed in the pulpit, but surely the reasons proffered do not suffice. What appears to be destiny is not necessarily duty. For the Christian preacher there can be but one compelling reason why he should preach on social problems, that reason being that the whole counsel of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and of which he is a minister, sheds light on these problems. If the Bible deals with the social problems of his day, the Christian preacher should discuss them in the pulpit. If the Bible does not deal with such matters, he too should leave them alone. Most assuredly Christian preaching must be timely, but that in no way detracts from the principle that preaching deserves to be called Christian only if it aims to be proclamation of the Word, the whole Word, and nothing but the Word.

Many preachers of the social gospel make bold to withdraw a large part of life from the domain of divine providence. The providence of God is said to control neither moral evil, sin, nor physical evil, sin’s consequence. A. E. Garvie has said: “Another error of popular thinking is the assumption that all that occurs is by or according to the will of God. .. Evils which might be prevented by intelligent action are ascribed to ‘a mysterious dispensation of the divine providence’”.[3] And John C. Bennett informs his readers that “the recognition that God is limited in His dealings with men, that He does not will the social evils of our time or any time, but that these evils are the result of forces which operate in spite of God’s will — such a recognition is the first step in attempting to discover any coherent conception of the work of God in the world”.[4] A bit later he condescends to grant that social evils may be “a by-product of something which God did will and do”.[5] It can hardly be disputed that Scripture, as well as the Reformed theology, includes sin in the sphere of divine providence without making God the author of sin. But if the problem of sin be ignored for the moment, it is clear as day that Garvie and Bennett flatly contradict the scriptural teaching concerning physical calamities as it finds expression in Amos’s rhetorical question, “Shall evil befall a city and Jehovah hath not done it?”[6] Just as clear is it that their theology involves a bold denial of the divine sovereignty.

The advocates of the social gospel are wont to stress Christ’s prophetic activity at the expense of his priestly office, his teaching at the expense of his atoning sacrifice. They go even farther. Christ’s teaching they distort until it dwindles to little more than a social message. His own statement that the Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many[7] they generally ignore. The precious doctrine that his death on the cross constituted a perfect sacrifice for the satisfaction of divine penal justice they ridicule. If they speak of redemption at all, they prefer the expression redemptive idea to the term redemptive act. In line with this attitude is their relatively too great stress on the Diesseitigkeit of the gospel. Not infrequently preachers of the social gospel ridicule the historic Christian gospel for its Jenseitigkeit and sometimes they actually go so far as to substitute for it an exclusive Diesseitigkeit. Says that noted British teacher and preacher, A. E. Garvie: “Men are saved by Christ, not for safety hereafter, but for service here”[8] Had he said that men are saved by Christ not only for safety hereafter but also for service here, his statement would have been unobjectionable from the viewpoint of historic orthodoxy. Still more precise and complete would have been the statement that Christ saves men for safety and service both here and hereafter. But as it stands Garvie’s dictum denies the teaching of Holy Writ that Christ “delivered us from the wrath to come”.[9] It is small wonder indeed that preachers of the social gospel are wont to place more emphasis on deliverance from the present consequences of sin than on escape from eternal punishment and that they frequently stress deliverance from the present consequences of sin more than redemption from sin itself, in principle now and unto perfection hereafter.

Few if any of the exponents of the social gospel will admit that their message is purely social and not at all individual. It is likely that every one of them has a message for the individual as well as society. Nor can it be truly said that many of them are so stupid as to overlook the obvious fact that society can never be better than the individuals constituting it. “I recognize quite clearly that with people just as they are, with their prejudices, ignorances, misapprehensions, their unchecked vanities, greeds and jealousies, their crude and misconstrued instincts, their irrational traditions, no Socialist state can exist — no better state can exist than the one you have now, with all its squalor and cruelty.”[10] That admission by H. G. Wells many preachers of the social gospel will no doubt willingly second. But what is the message of the social gospel for the individual? Is it gospel, good news? Hardly. In effect it tells him to be good and assures him that in the measure in which he is good he will contribute to the improvement of society and thus to the happiness of himself and others. But the hard truth is forgotten that men who are accustomed to do evil can no more learn to do good than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots.[11] As well tell a man sinking away in quicksand to lift himself out by his boot-straps. In close connection with this blunder the social gospel makes another just as serious. It is thoroughly behavioristic. Admitting that it is the individual who must improve society, it also holds forth the promise that the individual will be improved by better surroundings. To be sure, one’s environment influences one’s external behavior. But according to Holy Scripture the only power that can give sinful man a heart of flesh for one of stone, that can purify the fountainhead of man’s being, his heart, from which are the issues of his life and by which his behavior is in last analysis determined, is the power of God the Holy Spirit. Natural man is “dead in trespasses and sins”.[12] Moving a dead man out of the slums into the suburbs will not bring him to life. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”[13]

The concepts the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man enjoy great favor among liberals. And even if these terms are being used less frequently of late because they have grown trite, yet the notions occupy as prominent a place as ever in the social gospel. If the sole intent of these teachings were that God is the creator of all mankind, that all men have a common human parentage, and that every one must love his neighbor as himself, they could of course pass muster without the slightest difficulty. As a matter of fact, their implications reach much farther. The universal fatherhood of God is intended as a substitute for the biblical teaching that God is the father of those who are united by faith with his only son Jesus Christ, and the universal brotherhood of man is intended to take the place of the biblical teaching of the brotherhood of believers.[14] Moreover, these liberal teachings are meant to deny the emphatic scriptural doctrine of the absolute spiritual antithesis between believers and unbelievers. That antithesis literally pervades the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Immediately after the fall God said to Satan: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed”.[15] And the very last chapter of Holy Writ pronounces a beatitude upon those “that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city”, and then adds: “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie”.[16] The Lord Jesus himself, to whom the liberal interpretation of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man is falsely ascribed, called some men sons of God, others sons of the devil.[17]

It has already been suggested that the social gospel of liberalism substitutes for biblical supernaturalism a thorough-going naturalism. That fact deserves emphasis, for this is its basic error. The following citations from some of its ablest advocates speak for themselves. Said Shirley Jackson Case some years ago: “The course of history exhibits one long process of evolving struggle by which humanity as a whole rises constantly higher in the scale of civilization and attainment, bettering its condition from time to time through its greater skill and industry. Viewed in the long perspective of the ages, man’s career has been one of actual ascent. .. Since history and science show that betterment is always the result of achievement, man learns to surmise that evils still unconquered are to be eliminated by strenuous effort and gradual reform rather than by the catastrophic intervention of Deity”.[18] Said John C. Bennett more recently: “There is one fact neglected by theologies strongly Augustinian which must be recognized, whether to recognize it be Pelagianism in the current sense of that word or not. It is that human salvation, yes even the grace of God, can be blocked by social and psychological conditions which only human effort can remove”.[19] There is naturalism, not to say humanism, bold and bald. Not even W. E. Henley spoke more frankly in his well-known boast,

“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll:

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul”.[20]

Hardly less humanistic sounds J. H. Oldham’s description of Christianity as “essentially the revelation of the infinite value of human personality.[21]

That the exponents of the social gospel are not satisfied to preach the Word of God, the Bible, goes almost without saying. Without hesitation they add to the authoritative teaching of Holy Writ the theories of man. They even substitute the latter for the former. We are advised that “however reluctantly and modestly, the Christian preacher must already make the venture to offer to others such solutions as many of the best minds concerned with these problems have agreed upon”.[22] This explains the pronouncement so often made without any reservation from modernist pulpits that war is sin. It also accounts for the indubitable fact that more than a few preachers of the social gospel show a decided leaning toward such an unbiblical system of society as collectivism or communism.[23] Bennett insists that “today the problem of bread cannot be solved without a new economic system” and that “if Christian love means anything it will constrain us to look for radical social change”.[24 ]Whether or not Reinhold Niebuhr is willing to be classed as a liberal, the observation is in order that he takes the position that “the Marxians may be too dogmatic in their aversion from private property, and may sometimes desire to socialize property which is genuinely private and not social. But the whole of contemporary history validates their thesis that the present system of property automatically makes for injustice; and for a type of injustice which undermines the very foundation of society”.[25] And it can hardly be disputed that in Christ’s Alternative to Communism E. Stanley Jones recommends a system of society which he calls Christian but which is communism none the less.

The conclusion is warranted that the social gospel of present-day liberalism differs radically from the historic Christian gospel and at important points contradicts it emphatically.

It hardly needs to be said that consistent supernaturalism takes the position that theological liberalism is not one of several types of Christianity, is not even a modification, however far-reaching, of historic Christianity, but in its essence constitutes nothing less than a denial of the Christian religion. That was the contention of the late Dr. J. Gresham Machen, and so thoroughly did that brilliant scholar substantiate it in his Christianity and Liberalism that to the present day — after sixteeen years — no one has been found to refute it. It follows that one cannot with consistency hold to the teachings of Christianity and the teachings of liberalism. It likewise follows that no one can with consistency preach both Christianity and liberalism. In a word, the liberal social gospel, for all its boast that it is more Christian than the gospel of historic orthodoxy, is in reality antichristian.

II. The Individual Gospel of Dispensationalism

Must the conclusion be drawn that the proclamation of a social gospel is liberal in se and that therefore the discussion of social problems must be barred from Christian pulpits? To draw that conclusion now were hasty indeed. It would amount to jumping to a conclusion. Possibly the fault of the liberal social gospel lies not in its being social, but in its being liberal. Conceivably the fact that liberalism has gained a virtual monopoly of social preaching is, humanly speaking, accidental. Perhaps there is an orthodox way of preaching on social problems.

However, a large section of American fundamentalism is of the opinion, not to say conviction, that the Christian preacher is not the proper person to diagnose the ills of society and to prescribe remedies for them. It holds that the sole business of the Christian pulpit in this day and age is to proclaim to individual sinners the way of salvation. Lewis Sperry Chafer says guardedly: “The period between the death of Christ and His coming again is not characterized in the Scriptures as a time when the supreme purpose of God is the governing of the nations of the earth; this age is rather spoken of as ‘the times of the Gentiles’ in all matters of human government in the earth. .. This age is not the time of the salvation of society; that great undertaking is clearly in the purpose of God, but it is reserved for the age which is yet to come. The present age is characterized by a unique emphasis on the individual”. Less cautiously he concludes: “The Gospel of grace, which the death of Christ made possible, is an appeal to the individual alone”.[26] In his evaluation of Rauschenbusch’s famous volume I. M. Haldeman declared bluntly: “According to the Word of God, the work of the Church in this age is not to save society but individuals out of it”.[27] More than one fundamentalist preacher has been heard to say that the world is on fire, but that his interest is not to put the fire out; he would merely rescue individuals from it.

It must not be supposed that leading fundamentalist teachers and preachers are ignorant of the fact that the inspired preachers of the Bible dealt with human relations. That the prophet Amos, for instance, roundly rebuked certain well-to-do Israelites of his day for selling the poor for a pair of shoes,[28] that Isaiah pronounced a divine woe upon those that joined house to house and laid field to field till there was no place, that they might be placed alone in the midst of the earth,[29] that the Baptizer told the publicans who came to him not to exact more than the appointed taxes, and the soldiers to do violence to no man, not to bring false accusation, and to be content with their wages,[30] that Jesus had a great deal to say about family life, particularly on the problem of divorce,[31] that Paul in his epistles discussed family relationships,[32] the mutual relation of Christian masters and Christian servants,[33] and the Christian’s relation to civil magistrates,[34] that the same apostle enjoined Philemon to take back his converted runaway slave, “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved”,[35] and that James, the Lord’s brother, expressed righteous indignation with the rich that kept back by fraud the hire of the laborers who reaped down their fields[36] — these and like facts are well known to them.

The question arises how men who avowedly recognize the Bible as the infallible rule of faith and practice can in view of these facts deny to social problems a place in Christian preaching. Several factors enter into the answer, but all of these factors are interrelated.

Let no one think that the exponents of the individual gospel go to the absurd extreme of asserting that the gospel has nothing to say about the relation of a Christian to his fellow-Christians. They most readily grant that the gospel has much to say on that subject. For one example, Paul instructed Philemon, a Christian, how to deal with his runaway slave Onesimus, who by this time had also become a Christian. But the advocates of the individual gospel much prefer not to call this kind of preaching social. If Paul had discussed slavery as an institution and had said that no human being, whether Christian or pagan, may possess another human being, whether Christian or pagan, as his slave, that would have been social preaching. But Paul did no such thing. Again, the advocates of the individual gospel gladly admit that Scripture prescribes the Christian’s behavior toward his neighbors who are not of the faith. But that too they refuse to style a social message. In a word, those who would have only an individual gospel make a sharp distinction between the church and society. They identify society with the world of godless men, and therefore view the church and society as mutually exclusive. The Christian is not of society as he is not of the world. According to Haldeman, “the world is to the Church in this age as a ship pounding to pieces on the rocks. The Church is to the world in this age (that is to human society in this age) as a life-saving service on the shore”.[37] That so sharp a distinction between the church and the world is not only valid but of the greatest importance, no Christian will care to deny. One of the fatal errors of liberalism is the obliterating of this distinction by means of its teaching of the universal brotherhood of man. But the question must be raised in all seriousness by what right society is identified with the world which lies in wickedness. Is it not legitimate, to say the least, to employ the term society in a different sense and to assert that Christians, though chosen out of the world, yet help constitute society? After all, God did make of one blood all nations of men.[38] And if believers were not of society, why should Scripture require that they be subject to civil magistrates? A respectable dictionary defines society as “the collective body of persons composing a community, especially when considered as subjects of civil government”.[39] The conclusion is warranted that to identify society with the evil world and thus to exclude the Christian from society must be reckoned a serious fallacy. It is unbiblical, anabaptistic separatism.

What was just said amounts to much more than a mere quibble about terminology. Every once in a while preachers of the individual gospel make the assertion that Christ is not interested in the salvation of society now, that he will attend to that in the coming kingdom age, and that for the present he is leaving society to the control of Satan, “the prince of this world”. That Scripture calls Satan “the prince of this world” admits of no doubt,[40] but it is highly significant that, wherever the New Testament employs this designation of Satan, quite another teaching is found. In every instance he is declared defeated. In John 12:31 Jesus says with reference to his impending crucifixion: “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out”. In John 14:30, as death draws nearer, he tells the disciples: “The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me”. And in John 16:11 he informs his followers that when the Comforter is come he will convict the world of judgment “because the prince of this world is judged”. It is the unmistakable teaching of Jesus that by his death and exaltation he vanquished Satan, the ruler of the unbelieving, Christ-opposing world, and that henceforth Satan is prince of this world no more. This is not to deny that by the divine permission Satan still exercises much influence in the world. Christ’s victory over the devil will not be fully consummated until the end of time. Hence Satan is described elsewhere in the New Testament as “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”[41] and as “the god of this world”.[42] But this in no way contradicts the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel according to John that his victory over the reign of the devil was definitely decided by his death and exaltation and actually commenced at that time. In perfect harmony with this teaching is the risen Lord’s declaration: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth”,[43] Paul’s statement that, when God raised Christ from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, he “put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church”,[44] and John’s designation of the exalted Christ as “the prince of the kings of the earth”.[45]

Very prevalent among fundamentalists is the modern dispensational view of the Bible advocated by the so-called “Scofield Bible”. This view of the Scriptures helps to account for the fact that in spite of the admitted presence of social teaching in the Bible many fundamentalists decry social preaching in this day. The history of God’s dealings with men is divided into some seven dispensations defined as periods of time “during which man is tested in respect to obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God”.[46] In some instances the characteristics of these dispensations differ so radically as actually to contradict one another. In consequence many fundamentalists do not hesitate to say that certain parts of the Bible are “not for us”. To be sure, very few take the extreme position that only the imprisonment epistles are for the Christian of today. On the other hand, many are certain that, though a measure of social preaching may have been in order in other dispensations, it is wholly out of order today. What was permissible before Christ’s death in that regard is held to be improper after that event. In reviewing Rauschenbusch’s well-known work Haldeman first affirms emphatically that Christ’s preaching never dealt with society, neither in his early ministry nor toward the close of his life, but then he weakens a bit as regards the former period and says: “As the hour of the cross approached, he turned from any possible contemplation of society as such. .. He turns from society altogether, makes no provision to save it, and occupies himself henceforward with warning the individual soul of its need of salvation”.[47] That the dispensational view of the Bible is not that of historic orthodoxy as this finds expression in the great creeds of Christendom should be clear to any student of the history of Christian doctrine.[48] Very specifically, when reading Haldeman’s observation concerning Jesus, “He knew that the wages of the laborer were kept back by fraud; he raised no protest”,[49] one can hardly suppress the query whether James, several years after the crucifixion, did not raise a most vigorous protest against that very thing and in those very words.[50]

Most likely a majority of dispensationalists are Baptists. By that is not meant that most of them are enrolled in the various Baptist denominations. That may also be the case, but it is not the point. There are any number of Baptists in other than Baptist churches. They may practice infant baptism, but they have neither knowledge nor appreciation of the covenant of grace which underlies and validates that rite. For the fact of corporate responsibility bound up inseparably with the doctrine of the covenant they have substituted that individualism which is so characteristic of Baptistism. Small wonder that they demand an exclusively individual gospel. In the early history of this country the Baptists insisted more strenuously than did any other religious communion on the separation of church and state. For that they deserve much praise. On that score Protestantism has advanced far beyond the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Yet one cannot help wondering whether at times some Baptists do not here go to a perilous extreme. After all, the separation of church and state cannot be absolute. It is as necessary today as ever to maintain in opposition to the Romish church that the state is not a phase of the church. And in this day of totalitarian ascendancy it is hardly possible to insist too strenuously that the church is not a phase of the state. The two occupy different circles, as it were, and each is sovereign in its own circle. Hence the state may not presume to dictate to the church in spiritual matters, nor may the church attempt to govern a commonwealth. All that seems perfectly clear. But to assert that the two circles do not intersect each other were doctrinaire indeed. Life is organic, and the organic does not permit of so mechanical a separation. Concretely, if, as is generally admitted, the state has a legitimate interest in the property affairs of the church, may not the church be properly interested in the ethical aspects of civil government? And if it is a task of the state to protect the church in the exercise of religious liberty, is it not the privilege of the church to advise and guide the state in matters pertaining to religion and morals? Civil government must never become ecclesiastical. But it does not follow that civil government must be unreligious.

At least a few dispensationalists manifest definite antinomian tendencies. That is as might be expected. By virtue of their dispensationalism they draw an exceedingly sharp line of demarcation between the dispensation of law, which is past, and the present dispensation of grace.[51] The conclusion lies at hand that today man has but a slight interest, if indeed any at all, in the decalogue. But that is antinomianism itself. That it cannot be conducive to vigorous social preaching is self-evident. Obviously God’s moral law must hold a prominent place in a message which would diagnose the evils of society and prescribe a remedy for them. Men must be rebuked for forsaking God’s law and admonished to honor it.

Most significant of the factors which contribute to fundamentalist opposition to the treatment of the problems of society in the Christian pulpit is the dispensationalist distinction between the present church age and the coming kingdom age. At his first advent Christ meant to establish a kingdom on earth. He offered it to the Jews. When they rejected it, he postponed it until his second coming. For the interim he founded the church. In the church age he is concerned only to have individuals rescued, not at all to have society saved. To the latter he will attend in the kindgom age to come. It is an error to identify this view with the premillennial view of Christ’s return. Not nearly all premillenarians subscribe to the dispensationalism of the Scofield Reference Bible. Nor may it be said that dispensationalism is a necessary logical consequence of premillennialism. Yet it cannot be denied that the dispensational distinction between the church age and the kingdom age has many adherents among fundamentalists. One of its inescapable consequences is the conclusion that the Christian pulpit goes beyond its rightful province when it offers solutions for the problems of society.

However, neither the Scriptures nor the historic creeds of Christendom honor that distinction. To be sure, the concepts church and kingdom are not always employed as exact synonyms, nor are the church and the kingdom necessarily conceived of as being co-extensive. But that the church according to the Bible and the creeds is a manifestation of the kingdom admits of no doubt. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes “the visible church” as “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ”.[52] And how closely Christ himself identified the church with the kingdom when he first said to Peter: “I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, and immediately added: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven”.[53] Evidently the Lord had in mind a structure. First he spoke of its foundation, then of its keys. In the first instance he called the structure “my church”, in the second instance “the kingdom of heaven”. But the structure was one. To quote that scholarly and devout student of the Word, Geerhardus Vos: “Though Peter confessing be the foundation, the church is not of Peter’s or of any human making, the Lord himself will build it. And not only this, he will supremely rule in it, for out of the fulness of his authority he immediately proceeds to invest Peter with the power of the keys: ‘I will give unto thee.’ Objectively considered, therefore, the church is that new congregation taking the place of the old congregation of Israel, which is formed by Jesus as the Messiah and stands under his Messianic rule”.[54]

From the viewpoint of the historic Christian faith fundamentalism in many of its aspects is deserving of high praise. It would honor the Bible as the very Word of God. It aims to maintain a high supernaturalism. It stresses strongly the need of individual regeneration. All that and more may be said by way of commendation. One might well wish that he could describe fundamentalism as consistent supernaturalism and therefore as the polar opposite of naturalistic liberalism. However, that distinction, as will be pointed out presently, belongs not to fundamentalism but to the Reformed faith. And what a pity it is that fundamentalism, especially in America, has become tainted with that complex of errors, not to say heresies, which has come to be known as modern dispensationalism. Granted that not nearly every fundamentalist is a dispensationalist, it can hardly be denied that dispensationalism has made serious inroads on fundamentalism. And this, more than any other thing, accounts for the fact that so many fundamentalist ministers, instead of declaring the whole counsel of God, preach an impaired gospel. Theirs is a gospel of individual salvation. Excellent! But they cannot be said to preach the full gospel of the kingdom.[55] That is serious indeed.

III. The Quietistic Gospel of Barthianism

To describe the attitude of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and others of the dialectic school of theology toward the discussion of social questions in the pulpit is no easy matter. Two factors especially contribute to make it difficult — the avowed paradoxical, that is irrational, character of the dialectic theology and its dualism, apparent in the fact that for all its vigorous disavowal of liberalism, its strong emphasis on the divine transcendence, and its frequent repetition of the Reformed Soli Deo Gloria, much liberalism adheres to it. Differences among its exponents, especially between Barth and Brunner, of course add to the difficulty.

Complicated though the matter be, the evidence would seem to point unmistakably to the conclusion that the dialectic theology definitely discourages the proffering of solutions for the problems of society from the Christian pulpit. Three of its teachings in particular, all of them prominent, point in that direction. They are the dialectic conceptions of sanctification, of the norm of Christian ethics, and of eschatology. Barthianism’s views on all three of these subjects make inevitably for quietism and the preaching of a quietistic gospel.

Barth’s presentation of his doctrines of justification and sanctification contains countless statements which, taken by themselves, cannot but warm the cockles of the heart of him who believes and loves the Reformed faith with all his mind and heart and therefore hotly resents liberalism’s flippant denial of it. Barth deserves unqualified praise, for instance, for distinguishing sharply between justification and sanctification, for emphatically denying that one of these is ever present without the other, and most of all for insisting firmly that both are God’s work. For that very reason it is all the more regrettable that in his doctrine of sanctification he goes to the extreme of quietism.

Barth’s quietism appears plainly in the discussion of Romans 12:1 in his work on that epistle.56 Paul has taught with uncompromising vigor such supposedly hard doctrines as total depravity, justification by grace through faith, not works, and predestination. Now begins what is known as the practical part of the epistle, which enjoins upon Christians such virtues as brotherly love, hospitality, love of enemies, and obedience to civil magistrates. Barth is deeply concerned lest the readers of the epistle carry away the erroneous impression that this recommendation of good works is meant by the apostle to act as a brake, as it were, on the tremendous force of the first eleven chapters. This he would by all means prevent. To change the figure, not for all the world would Barth have Pauline ethics construed as so much water added to the strong wine of Pauline doctrine. Hence Barth’s interpretation of the sacrifice demanded in the words: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service”. What the Christian must do is to sacrifice, to surrender, to give up, to let go of himself. And according to Barth all Christian activity amounts to just that and no more. He who would in performing good works go beyond this sacrifice had better follow the example of the rich young ruler and turn away from Christ, for he has too many possessions. In fact, the sacrifice itself should not be construed as an act of the new man. It is “in itself a human act as good and as bad as every other act”. God must have all the glory, and there is no continuity between God’s working and the working of the Christian. As the Christian offers himself up to God he does not thereby become “God’s organ”.[57]

Elsewhere Barth denies that sanctification is a progressive process in which the justified man gradually becomes less sinful and more holy. He describes the good works of those who are justified, not as imperfect obedience, but as disobedience to God’s commands.[58] One of his Dutch critics has pointed out that Barth applies to the Christian the Heidelberg Catechism’s description of unregenerate man — “wholly incapable of doing any good and inclined to all wickedness.[59]

It is clear that Barth cannot consistently subscribe to the teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith on sanctification: “The dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and they (Christians) more and more quickened and strengthened, in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord”.[60] It is just as evident that, while placing due emphasis on the scriptural teaching that it is God who works in the believer both to will and to do, Barth can hardly do justice to the scriptural admonition that for that very reason the believer is in sacred duty bound to work out his own salvation.[61] One can readily understand why an ardent Barthian would prefer Moffatt’s mistranslation of the first clause of 1 Corinthians 3:9, “We labor together in God’s service”, to the correct translation of the Authorized Version, “We are labourers together with God”, or the equally good American Revised rendering, “We are God’s fellow-workers”.[62]

Barth deserves much credit for re-emphasizing the teaching of God’s Word and the Reformers that it is God who sanctifies the Christian, not the Christian himself, and that therefore to God belongs every whit of the glory, but he fails to give due emphasis to the complementary teaching of Scripture and the Reformers that the grace of God renders the Christian active in the process. In consequence his doctrine of sanctification is tainted with unscriptural quietism. And while history and experience show that the realization of utter dependence on the grace of God is most conducive to a life of zealous Christian service, no such activity can be credited to quietism.

On the subject of sanctification Brunner does not lay himself as wide open to the charge of quietism as does Barth. Works of faith, characterized by Barth as works of man which God uses, Brunner prefers to describe as works of God through man. However, to the fundamental question of Christian ethics how one is to know God’s will Brunner’s reply is as reprehensible as Barth’s. That both of these dialecticians reveal the influence of liberalism in their estimate of Holy Scripture is well known. This estimate inevitably determines their view of the norm of Christian ethics.

Both Barth and Brunner deny that the Bible contains the objective revelation of the will of God for man’s behavior in all times, places, and circumstances. An interesting and illuminating instance of this denial by Barth is related by G. C. Berkouwer. Somewhere in Germany a woman had been admitted to the gospel ministry. This occasioned a debate between Pastor Kolfhaus and Karl Barth. Kolfhaus insisted on the ground of “das klare Wort” of 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12 that a preaching woman in Christ’s church is “eine verbotene Erscheinung”. On reading this statement Barth was “aufrichtig gekümmert”. He argued that Kolfhaus erred in making biblical commandments universal truths.[63] Precisely the same position is taken by Brunner in his The Divine Imperative. Henry Nelson Wieman, himself of course not a Barthian, has stated the case admirably — “As Brunner himself would say, God’s will cannot be prescribed by any set of principles laid down prior to the concrete and unique situation in which you act. God will guide you in the face of the concrete situation if you act in the obedience of faith, seeking with all your heart for the very best you can find there. But such action can never be duplicated. It is unique, special, the will of God for that time and place. For that very reason it cannot be put into a system and carried over into another time and place by another person”.[64] Plainspoken John McConnachie has said: “If anyone asks me what he should do in a particular situation, I cannot tell him. No one, not even an apostle, can tell him, but God Himself alone. Such is the freedom of the Christian man. He is free from law, programme, pattern, free in movement to do the will of God, as he is guided by His eye day by day.[65]

Of one piece with this conception of the Christian ethical standard is Brunner’s dangerous distinction between the ideal and the real in the ethical sphere. It is said to be impossible and impractical to apply the Christian ideal under any and every circumstance. The strain of Christian ethics, which would otherwise be intolerable, is lightened by the distinction between the ethical ideal and the word for each particular situation. “Real Christian ethics”, says Brunner, “is. .. . always realistic in its evaluation of the need of the present moments, in its clairvoyance with regard to the situation at hand”.[66] In a word, “das Gebot der Stunde”, the command for the hour, and the Christian ideal may lie far apart.

That all of Christian ethics is thus placed on a subjective and unstable foundation can hardly be denied. Wieman is right when he charges that what Brunner calls “Christian ethics” in The Divine Imperative has only the flavor of Christianity and is in reality “the insights derived from the teachings of modern psychology, the social sciences, current philosophical ethics, and the works of the ‘secular’ mind of today, together with selected insights of the past”.[67] In particular does it become impossible on this basis to give an objective answer to the question whether or not social problems should be discussed in the Christian pulpit. And if somehow it be assumed that they must, the reply to the question what message the Christian minister is to deliver on these problems becomes nebulous indeed. A definite biblical program is out of the question.

The exponents of the theology under discussion frequently style it “the theology of crisis”. The name is well chosen. Crisis or catastrophic judgment is one of its keynotes. The dialectic theologians are not postmillenarians — least of all naturalistic, evolutionistic postmillenarians, but neither are they postmillenarians of the supernaturalistic school. They do not believe that the kingdom of God on earth will gradually be perfected by such human efforts as education, social service, or the liberal social gospel, and neither do they believe that it will be progressively perfected through the preaching of the true gospel. Not gradually now by man or even through man, but by God alone with catastrophic suddenness in the future, will the kingdom of God among men be realized.

In his The Theology of Crisis Brunner comes dangerously near to advocating a consistently and exclusively eschatological conception of the kingdom. Its positive realization in this world is to all intents and purposes negated and all emphasis is placed on its realization in the new earth and the new heaven. Changes in the present world are said at best to be “a reflection” of the kingdom of God, “but not the kingdom itself”. To be sure, it is also asserted that the kingdom, though “exclusively eschatological”, is “not merely future”, because “in Jesus Christ the breaking through into the historical process of the world has begun”. But even thus all changes for good in the empirical world are described as “signs and anticipations of a victory won in the realm of the invisible world, a victory that some time will become, but is not now, visible”.[68] And Barth, in his discussion of the term fulness of time, declares it folly to say that at Christ’s first advent the kingdom of God came and that it is now found in the church and Christendom. According to him Scripture does not teach that the kingdom has come, only that it has come nigh.[69]

That the Christian minister who holds consistently to the Barthian eschatology will be reduced to complete quietism in the matter of preaching on social problems would seem to be self-evident. If the kingdom is not here now but is purely eschatological, and if God does not see fit to further its realization by human effort, not even through the preaching of the gospel of his Son, then manifestly all social preaching is foredoomed to utter futility.

Whether all Barthians actually draw this conclusion is another matter. In view of the “paradoxical” character of the dialectic theology one could hardly look for that. As a matter of fact, at least some refuse to do it.[70] But by all the rules of logic Barthians should so conclude. Brunner has at times reminded the church of its duty to speak up on social questions,[71] but in his booklet The Word and the World the emphasis on this phase of the church’s task is slight. It is significant that Brunner has unequivocally declared that there can be no such thing as Christian politics.[72] And just as significant perhaps is Barth’s testimony that in the ecclesiastical struggle which resulted in his expulsion from Germany he was actuated, not by opposition to German National Socialism, but by his serious difference with the so-called German Christians within the church.[73] His very recent utterance to the effect that the church must witness against National Socialism occasioned wide-spread surprise. Well might it create surprise, for it suggests a remarkable change of front.

Wieman has ventured a dire prediction concerning Barthianism. It has forsaken the rational approach of “traditional supernaturalism”. It has repudiated every rational method of distinguishing between truth and error. By so doing it has opened the gates to every form of bigotry, cruelty, and violence. It will be “the growth of the future if and when and where our civilization is destroyed”.[74] Obviously Wieman does not look to the dialectic theology for the solution of society’s problems. This prediction would seem to find support in sound logic. Irrationalism can lead only to chaos. But the “traditional supernaturalist” can find no logic in the prediction that, if our scientific civilization survives, the “new naturalism” of Wieman will be its religion.[75] To the “new supernaturalism” of Barth and the “new naturalism” of Wieman alike must be addressed Isaiah’s prophecy: “To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them”.[76]

IV. The Comprehensive Gospel of Calvinism

In the evaluations made of the social gospel of liberalism, the individual gospel of dispensationalism, and the quietistic gospel of Barthianism the Reformed attitude toward preaching on social problems was intimated. A fuller statement of the Calvinistic view is now in order. The gospel as proclaimed by the minister of Reformed persuasion may be described as comprehensive.

A comprehensive gospel is not the exclusive possession of Calvinists. Albert Hyma has shown that, contrary to popular opinion, Luther was at least as deeply interested in the moral aspect of economic problems as was Calvin.[77] There are Lutheran preachers today who aim to do justice both to the individual message of the gospel and to its social implications. That statement applies, for instance, to that courageous radio preacher, Walter A. Maier, of Concordia Seminary. Yet it can hardly be counted an exaggeration to describe a comprehensive gospel as characteristically Reformed. Truly Reformed preaching has ever been marked, not only by a deep interest in the salvation of men, but by at least as much concern about the coming of God’s kingdom. In fact, it looks upon the former as a means to the accomplishment of the latter. “The attitude of the Reformed churches to the world follows from their conception of the Church. Since the Church is not concerned only with the proclamation of the message of Grace, but also with the response given to that message in the life of the faithful, it gives guidance in matters of public as well as private life. .. Since the law of God is given, not only to bring men to repentance, but also to restrain the wicked and to reveal the Will of God to believers, the Reformed Church seeks in the Bible the principles according to which the social and political order should be organized. Thus the Reformed faith has always had a strong sense of its mission in public life, and has in many countries become a force of social and political renewal and transformation.”[78]

Calvin in his day fathered a thoroughgoing reformation of public morals in the city of Geneva. And the nineteenth century witnessed a remarkable revival of Calvinism in the Netherlands which made itself felt, not only in the churches, but through the churches also in other spheres of life. Today Holland boasts numerous institutions of Christian mercy, an influential Christian labor alliance, a Reformed university with high scholastic standards, and a strong Calvinistic political party known as “de Antirevolutionaire Partij”. A few decades past this political party was headed by the great theologian-statesman Abraham Kuyper. Its present leader is Hendrik Colijn of international reputation. It is worthy of note that the founding of these institutions and organizations antedated the publication of Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis by many years.

Not for a moment may the thought be harbored that Reformed preaching stresses the social teaching of the Bible at the expense of its messsage of individual redemption. Hardly anything could be farther removed from the truth. The charge so often laid at the door of Calvinism that it does not show sufficient interest in the salvation of souls is utterly false. The difference between the Calvinist and him who offers this criticism is not that the former is concerned less about the salvation of souls, but that the latter is concerned less about the kingdom of God. Of all men no one is more firmly convinced than the Calvinist that there can be no such thing as the salvation of society apart from the salvation of the individuals constituting society; that placing a sinner in a better environment, though this may help hold sin in check, can never make the slightest contribution toward uprooting sin from the heart and thus making the sinner a better man; that no human being will give heed to the demand that he recognize the sovereignty of God and Christ in every sphere of human life who has not first fled as an undone sinner to Calvary and found salvation in the precious blood of Christ crucified. In a word, it is the glory of the Reformed theology that it stresses with all its might the absolute necessity of individual supernatural regeneration. Therefore the message of the Reformed minister deals primarily with individual salvation.

It is important to observe that the Reformed doctrine of individual regeneration not only stands diametrically opposed to the Pelagian naturalism of present-day liberalism, but also goes far beyond the popular Arminianism of fundamentalism. The latter teaches that unregenerate man has “sufficient grace” to receive Christ in faith of his own free volition, and it tells him that he must do this in order that he may be born again. Thus man is said to contribute toward his regeneration, and regeneration is represented as a duty. The Reformed faith, on the other hand, refuses to compromise to that degree or to any other degree, however small, with naturalism. It teaches that regeneration is prerequisite for saving faith and that in regeneration the sinner is completely passive. As a corpse cannot bring itself to life, so the spiritually dead sinner cannot make the slightest contribution toward his second birth. The new birth is the work of God alone. Calvinism is consistent supernaturalism.

Why the Reformed preacher does not stop with the message of individual redemption but proceeds to the social implications of the gospel of salvation has already been suggested. The answer may be framed in various ways. But the most comprehensive statement of the case is this — the Reformed preacher brings a social message because he finds such a message in God’s Word. He finds it in the preaching of the prophets, the Baptizer, Jesus, and his apostles, but also in many portions of Scripture which are not themselves sermons. He finds it here and there and everywhere in Scripture. Determined as he is to declare the whole counsel of God, he cannot keep silent. That is his reason in its entirety. It may be viewed from different angles.

The Calvinist sees in the Bible both law and gospel. The two are interwoven. To distinguish between them is not only valid but highly necessary. Yet to separate them is to do violence to Holy Writ. The Old Testament contains both law and gospel. The New Testament contains both gospel and law. The law itself is pregnant with gospel, and the gospel is full of law. The gospel invitation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”, is itself a command.[79] Both gospel and law are intended for all men. As the gospel is universal in its invitation, so the law is universal in its demands. Therefore the Reformed preacher is zealous to reach all men with the gospel of salvation and equally zealous to confront all men with the divine commandments. He knows that no one will receive the gospel of salvation who has not first been convicted of sin by the law. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”[80] For those convicted it becomes a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.[81] As for those who are not convicted, the preaching of the law may serve in this life to hold sin in check, and on the great day of reckoning it will leave them without excuse.[82] And for believers God’s law is the rule of life. Jesus said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments”.[83]

The Reformed theology discovers in the Bible the doctrine of the covenant. It sees this doctrine woven into the very warp and woof of Holy Scripture. One of its presuppositions is the organic unity of humanity. To be sure, the Calvinist stresses, as perhaps no other Christian does, the spiritual antithesis between God’s children and the children of the devil. He knows full well that, though in the world, he is not of the world. But he never loses sight of the fact that he is a member of the human race and consequently of society. “Calvinism is a philosophy of life with a profound appreciation of the organic unity of the human race. .. . And neither Calvin nor Luther ever abandoned the principle of racial solidarity and social unity.”[84] Therefore Calvinism stands opposed to that individualism and separatism which were characteristic of the Anabaptists of the Reformation age and are in evidence today among their spiritual descendants who deny that the Christian is a constituent of society.

Not only is the Calvinist conscious of being of society. He also realizes that his God has assigned to him a duty toward society. His task is to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”. Far from hiding his light under a bushel or a bed, he would place it high on a candlestick that it may give light to all that are in the house and that the Father which is in heaven may get glory.[85]

Again, the Calvinist finds it taught in the Scriptures that the kingdom of God is not exclusively of the future but is a present reality. Paul admonished the Christians at Colosse to give thanks unto the Father, “who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son”.[86] And that Christ’s reign extends beyond the church appears from his own claim that to him has been given all authority in heaven and in earth, from the Pauline teaching that God placed the resurrected Saviour “at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church”, and from John’s appellation of the ascended Christ, “the prince of the kings of the earth”.[87] In the words of A. A. Hodge, “As the universe constitutes one physical and moral system, it was necessary that his headship as Mediator should extend to the whole”.[88] All things then are Christ’s. Every sphere of life is his rightful domain. Realizing that, the Reformed preacher deems himself in duty bound to demand of men everywhere that they recognize Christ as king.

The question how effective his message will prove does not trouble the Reformed preacher out of measure. What concerns him is that he has marching orders. Most assuredly, he prays with all the fervor at his command that God the Holy Spirit may cause the seed of the Word to bring forth fruit a hundredfold. He is also confident that his labors will not be in vain in the Lord. But he does not need the post-millennial view of the future to sustain him in his work. Likely a minority of Reformed preachers today take the position that through the preaching of the gospel the kingdom will be brought to perfection. Many more are convinced that Jesus’ rhetorical question, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”[89] implies that, when the present dual process of the evangelization of non-Christian peoples and the development of the forces of evil shall have run its course, the victory to all appearances will be on the side of the prince of darkness. However, with catastrophic suddenness Christ will appear in person, destroy Satan and his domain, and upon its ruins perfect his own everlasting kingdom. Those who take this view are obviously much less optimistic about the immediate results of the presentation of the social teaching of the gospel than are their postmillenarian brethren. Radically though they differ with Dean Inge theologically, they share in his pessimism to the extent of surmising that the church may have to be satisfied with seeing a little flock here and there, though a large number in the aggregate, rescued from materialism, selfishness and hatred.[90] But let no one think that they are for that reason less zealous for their task. The Christian knows full well that he will not nearly attain to the prize of moral perfection in this life; yet he bends every nerve to apprehend it. The Reformed preacher likewise puts every ounce of his strength into a message which he knows will meet with far less than universal response. To strive with might and main for that which is unattainable in the present is of the essence of Christianity.

The Reformed minister prays the prayer which his Lord has taught him — “Thy kingdom come”.[91] Is that a petition for the divine blessing on Christian missions? Emphatically, yes! But its meaning is not thus exhausted. To get its full import one must view it in relation to the next petition — “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”. When all dwellers on earth render to God the same perfect obedience as do the angels in heaven, then his kingdom will have been consummated. For that the preacher prays. Mindful of the adage “Ora et labora”, the faithful preacher strives toward the same end with the God-given means of the comprehensive gospel. And does not the missionary message itself include much more than is popularly supposed? In the great commission Jesus charged his followers to teach the nations “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”.[92]

The Christian minister must deal with social problems in the pulpit because it is his duty to preach the whole Word. But let him beware lest he go beyond the Word. There is a wide difference between a minister of the gospel and a teacher of sociology. The latter deals with technical details. The former likely knows little of such matters, but even though he be an expert sociologist, he has no business bringing them into the pulpit. Whether a mechanic in this age of mass production should work five hours a day or seven, and whether or not the term of office of the President of the United States of America should be extended to six years — such questions he should leave alone because they cannot be answered with certainty from God’s Word. The minister of the gospel deals with the eternal principles of truth and justice as they are contained in the Holy Scriptures and with their unmistakably valid application to his times. Nothing but the Word! Well may the Christian minister write this warning on the tablets of his mind as he essays to deal with the problems of society, lest his message degenerate into the so-called social gospel of liberalism, which in reality is not a gospel.

On the other hand, the minister does not perform his full duty if he merely declares principles and fails to apply them to such specific instances as clearly demand their application. To say, “Thou shalt not kill”, without denouncing wanton wars of conquest; to say, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, without censuring lax laws pertaining to divorce; to say, “Thou shalt not steal”, without reproving employers for paying starvation wages and employees for staging sit-down strikes; and to lay down the golden rule without ever condemning sweat-shop practices and usury or requiring unselfishness in business and substantial aid for the poor — such preaching is both unsympathetic and uncourageous. It is not likely to convict the guilty or to arouse the indolent. It is not patterned after the preaching of the inspired preachers of Holy Writ.

But not nearly all has been said as to why the Christian minister must bring a social as well as an individual message. This is his task because the Bible has such a message. So far so good. But this task of his is rendered the more urgent by the fact that the Bible offers the only ultimate solution for the problems of society. Consider the matter of war, for example. Says the Word of God: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea”.[93] Not until the knowledge of Jehovah fills the earth will all wars cease. So there is the one and only truly effective remedy for that great evil. How glorious is the task of the Christian minister! The statesmen and sociologists of the world, if they ignore God’s Word, are little more than triflers in comparison with him. To be sure, their work need not and may not be disparaged. If they be endowed with a goodly measure of God’s common grace, they may recommend measures that give temporary relief from the ills of life. Such measures must be adopted with gratitude to Him from whom all blessings flow. But the Word of God prescribes the sure and only cure for human woes, and to tell men of this one infallible remedy is the Christian minister’s unique privilege. Arthur Balfour, the British statesman, once lectured on The Moral Values which Unite the Nations. He spoke of such matters as diplomacy, friendship, and education. When the applause which followed had died down, an oriental student in the audience rose to his feet and said, “But, Mr. Balfour, what of Jesus Christ?”[94] This student named not the greatest force, merely, which will ultimately unite the nations, but the only. And this end will be accomplished, not by the liberal teaching of the universal brotherhood of man, which the authors of Rethinking Missions would make the keynote of Christian missions, and which contaminates the missionary message of perhaps all the great denominations, but by Christ’s atoning and reconciling blood.[95]

It has sometimes been argued that the oft-quoted resolve of the chief of the apostles not to know anything save Jesus Christ and him crucified[96] rules all social preaching out of order. So superficial is this opinion that it hardly deserves refutation. By his death on the cross the Saviour vanquished sin. And it is sin that accounts for all the woes of humanity. Sin lies at the bottom of all the problems of society. Calvary spells deliverance from sin and all its consequences. The conclusion is inescapable that the minister who fails to preach on social problems by that very neglect volens nolens belittles the meaning of the cross.

It is just as true that apart from the cross there is no solution for the problems of society and that the preacher who divorces his social message from the cross resembles sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. L. Berkhof has well said: “If the question be asked, as is sometimes done, whether the Cross of Christ or the Kingdom of God should be the central theme of the pulpit’s message, we do not hesitate to reply: the Cross — the Cross that was an offense, a stumbling-block to the Jew, and foolishness to the Greek, but that is the power of God unto salvation for all those that believe. Yet with the distinct understanding that the pulpit should never lose sight of the fact that on the Cross the Kingdom is to be founded”.[97]

Notes

1. The Modern Pulpit, p. 87.
2. Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 343.
3. The Preachers of the Church, p. 154.
4. Social Salvation, p. 189.
5. Ibid., p. 195.
6. Amos 3:6.
7. Matthew 20:28.
8. The Preachers of the Church, p. 190.
9. I Thessalonians 1:10.
10. Cited from H. G. Wells, New Worlds for Old, by W. M. Clow in Christ and the Social Order, p. 259.
11. Jeremiah 13:23.
12. Ephesians 2:1.
13. John 3:3.
14. See, e.g., John 1:12 and Romans 8:29.
15. Genesis 3:15.
16. Revelation 22:14f.
17. John 8:42–44.
18. The Millennial Hope, pp. 238f.
19. Social Salvation, p. 63.
20. Invictus.
21. W. A. Visser 't Hooft and J. H. Oldham, The Church and Its Function in Society, p. 147.
22. A. E. Garvie, The Preachers of the Church, p. 198.
23. The fact that, according to Acts 2:44ff., the early Christians at Jerusalem had all things common in no way implies that communism is an ideal system of society. This particular communism was an isolated instance; the New Testament offers no evidence that it was practised in any other church. It was optional; the members of the church were under no obligation to divide their possessions with one another. See Acts 5:4. Most significant, it was communism among Christians only.
24. Social Salvation, pp. 91f.
25. Chapter VI, "Social Justice", in Christianity and Communism, p. 68.
26. Grace, p. 148.
27. Prof. Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 36.
28. Amos 2:6.
29. Isaiah 5:8.
30. Luke 3:12–14.
31. E.g., Luke 16:18.
32. E.g., Ephesians 6:1–4.
33. E.g., Ephesians 6:5–9.
34. Romans 13:1–7.
35. Philemon 16.
36. James 5:1–6.
37. Prof. Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 36. The parenthesis is Haldeman's.
38. Acts 17:26.
39. Funk and Wagnalls' New Standard Dictionary of the English Language.
40. ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου is the New Testament rendering of שַׂר הָעוֹלָם, the standing rabbinic designation of Satan as prince of the gentile world, in distinction from God's people Israel.
41. Ephesians 2:2.
42. II Corinthians 4:4.
43. Matthew 28:18.
44. Ephesians 1:20–22.
45. Revelation 1:5.
46. The Scofield Reference Bible, p. 5, note 4.
47. Prof. Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 30.
48. For a strong refutation of this view see the article "Modern Dispensationalism and the Doctrine of the Unity of Scripture" by Oswald T. Allis in The Evangelical Quarterly, January, 1936.
49. Prof. Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 26.
50. James 5:4.
51. See The Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1115, note 1.
52. Chapter XXV, Section II.
53.  Matthew 16:18, 19.
54. The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church, p. 144.
55. Philip Mauro has entitled one of his anti-dispensational books The Gospel of the Kingdom with an Examination of Modern Dispensationalism. Its main thrust is to the point.
56. Der Römerbrief, pp. 410ff.
57. Ibid., p. 417.
58. Article "Das Halten der Gebote" in Zwischen den Zeiten, 1927, p. 219.
59. G. C. Berkouwer, Karl Barth, footnote on p. 46. The citation is from Question 8 of the Catechism.
60. Chapter XIII, Section I.
61. Philippians 2:12, 13.
62. John McConnachie, The Barthian Theology and the Man of Today, pp. 268f. Cf. Meyer's Commentary on the New Testament and Alford's Greek Testament in loco.
63. Karl Barth, pp. 145ff.
64. H. N. Wieman and W. M. Horton, The Growth of Religion, p. 253.
65. The Barthian Theology and the Man of Today, p. 263.
66. The Theology of Crisis, footnote on p. 80.
67. Wieman and Horton, The Growth of Religion, p. 253.
68. Pp. 108ff.
69. Zwischen den Zeiten, 1932, pp. 458ff.
70. See, e.g., H. Rolston, A Conservative Looks to Barth and Brunner, pp. 159ff.
71. E.g., The Theology of Crisis, p. 69.
72. See Berkouwer, Karl Barth, footnote on p. 136.
73. Ibid., pp. 116ff.
74. Wieman and Horton, The Growth of Religion, pp. 257, 271.
75. Ibid., p. 272.
76. Isaiah 8:20, American Revised Version.
77. Christianity, Capitalism, and Communism, chapters II and III.
78. W. A. Visser 't Hooft in The Church and Its Function in Society by 't Hooft and Oldham, pp. 49f.
79. Acts 16:31.
80. Romans 3:20.
81. Galatians 3:24.
82. Cf. Romans 2:12–15.
83. John 14:15.
84. E. J. Tanis, Calvinism and Social Problems, p. 61.
85. Matthew 5:13–15.
86. Colossians 1:12, 13.
87. See footnotes 43, 44, 45.
88. Outlines of Theology, p. 429.
89. Luke 18:8.
90. W. R. Inge, Science, Religion, and Reality, p. 388.
91. Matthew 6:10.
92. Matthew 28:20.
93. Isaiah 11:9.
94. See Robert E. Speer on "Christianity and International Relations" in Christianity and Modern Thought, pp. 179f.
95. Ephesians 2:13–17.
96. I Corinthians 2:2.
97. The Church and Social Problems, pp. 18f.