Gospel Centeredness, Jesus, and Social Ethics

By Dr. Mike Stallard

[Dean of Baptist Bible Seminary Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania]

Environmental ethics, world hunger, human trafficking and slavery, political oppression, proper economic systems, advancing the status of women in the world, racism, anti-Semitism, genocide, abortion, and molestation of children--issues of social justice are ever before us.[1] Reading such a list reminds one that sin is alive and well on planet earth. All thoughtful Christians I know care about these things. Beyond this, few fundamental Christians would object to the notion that the church’s mission is to deal with sin. But how are Christians to do this? Most of us would say that the primary mission of the church, a mission that deals with sin, is the preaching of the gospel of eternal life. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead (1 Cor 15:1-4). That is the biblical gospel of eternal life by which we are saved. It is applied to individuals through faith in that gospel, that is, faith alone in what Christ alone did to deal with sin. Most of us would say that the saving of souls is primary while the saving of society, if it is to be a goal at all, is secondary.

This article is not about the debate over how much social action is justified for the individual Christian and the corporate church. The concern I am dealing with is how interests in social action are currently leading to or using a redefinition of the gospel that is not consistent with biblical use. To address this issue I want to pursue two case studies. First, I will analyze

Richard Stearns’s award-winning book The Hole in Our Gospel.[2] I will argue that he has proper goals in mind but at certain points expands the concept of gospel to accommodate those goals. In doing so, theological precision is lost. Second, I want to review the language of the gospel to justify social engagement I have found in the writings of N. T. Wright, the famous New Perspective adherent. My goal is not to denigrate social ethics within biblical Christianity. My desire is simply to reaffirm a proper focus on the true gospel in distinction from the implications of that gospel for a life lived fully for God. Confusion of these two areas can easily lead to a lack of clarity in the giving of gospel invitations and to a lack of evangelism in the work of Christians.

Richard Stearns’s The Hole In Our Gospel

Richard Stearns, the head of World Vision, has indeed given us an interesting and, at some points, compelling book. The Hole in Our Gospel has received the 2010 Christian Book of the Year award granted by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. Stearns gives a call to action that is for all Christian believers to live obedient lives that love others by showing genuine social concern, especially to the poor and needy and Third World countries. Taken by itself, this appears to be a noble cause. The book, however, calls for a redefinition of the gospel itself that accommodates and supports such social action.

What is Right about the Book

Before outlining some details of the difficulties in the book, it is appropriate to highlight what we can applaud in Stearns’s vision. There are many things about Stearns’s work that go beyond the good to the excellent. I begin with the simple call to help the poor and needy. The Bible through and through treats this issue significantly even when it is not the primary message.

The essence of World Vision and of Stearns’s calling as the leader of the ministry is to highlight this need. If anyone on the planet could express this need clearly to the Christian public, it would be Stearns. While the whole book points in this direction, his chapter four on “The Towering Pillars of Compassion and Justice” leads the way with a focus on Isaiah 58 and Matthew 25.[3] What drives the fulfillment of the need is the love ethic that fills or should fill the Christian heart (Stearns’s chapter 5).[4] Much of the book shows how the need is expansive, even epidemic, as a worldwide dilemma of great proportions.

Perhaps the greatest contribution of the book, however, is the courage on the part of Stearns to identify some problems inherent in the American Dream. He does not do this caustically. He classifies himself as one of the culprits, a former CEO in corporate America, who had put his own material advancement ahead of helping others.[5] Without attacking the economic system of capitalism, he reminds the reader that moving the American Dream to the center of life robs God of his glory as the Provider. He announces in the end, “If we’re in God’s game, we need to put the American Dream to death, because God’s game is a different game altogether.”[6]

A final positive from The Hole in Our Gospel is found in the statistics that Stearns cites about the woeful giving habits of American Christians (chapter entitled “Two Percent of Two Percent”).[7] This is in one way the flip side of the cautions he gives concerning the American Dream. Christians are too busy putting their resources into their own personal agendas rather than considering the worldwide needs of ministry.

Problems with the Book’s Use of the Word Gospel

My criticism of Stearns is not about his basic premise that Christians should do more than they are doing to help the poor and invade the social darkness with actions of love in addition to their proclamations of the gospel of eternal life. I am totally with him on that. However, my main concern is his use of the word gospel in ways that are inaccurate and imprecise. In criticizing him, I am not demanding that his work be turned into a treatise on the academic disciplines of biblical and systematic theology. His book is a pragmatic one, meant to influence the lives of Christians to do more in a specific area of life. However, in presenting his case, it is necessary for him to invoke the teachings of the Bible. While doing so, he has added some distortion to one of the most important words in theology.

A Cloudy Definition of the Word Gospel

Early on in his book, Stearns shows the imprecise use of the term gospel which will characterize his work:

The idea behind The Hole in Our Gospel is quite simple. It’s basically the belief that being a Christian, or follower of Jesus Christ, requires much more than just having a personal and transforming relationship with God. It also entails a public and transforming relationship with the world. … Embracing the gospel, or good news, proclaimed by Jesus is so much more than a private transaction between God and us. The gospel itself was born of God’s vision of changed people, challenging and transforming the prevailing values and practices of our world. Jesus called the resulting new world order “the kingdom of God” and said that it would become a reality through the lives and deeds of His followers.[8]

The simple idea of the book is appropriate in my judgment. One of the implications of following Christ is that it involves my relationship with God at a personal level and with others in the world at a horizontal level. We could perhaps discuss in more detail what the content of “transforming” is for both the personal and public relationships. However, following Christ does indeed involve a full-orbed Christian worldview lived fully in loving God and others. This much is not problematic.

However, notice that an embrace of the gospel is more than a private transaction between God and us. At this point I get concerned. Does this mean that what Jesus accomplished on the cross is the basis for the redemption of all things, including creation and social structures? There may be room for a positive discussion if that is the point. However, there is the indication that Stearns is using the word gospel to encompass the social action that is one of the implications of a life lived following Christ. There is no hint that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the good news that when embraced leads to the justification of the sinner (the Pauline definition of the gospel). Then the sinner from the vantage point of a right relationship with God can live in the world and love the world as he should including the proclamation of the gospel of eternal life and social engagement as appropriate. Instead of this summary, Stearns’s words come across as the following message to Christians: “you need to do social action because that is part of what the gospel means.”[9] That such a reading of Stearns is what is meant can be discerned by his association of the gospel with the doctrine of the kingdom, a topic to be discussed later.

I find it quite interesting that many chapters of the book never mention the gospel. Beyond that, others simply attach the word gospel to a discussion where it is not really needed. For example, in a chapter titled “The Great Omission,” Stearns appropriately challenges believers to give their lives for others in terms of justice and eliminating hunger.[10] Then out of the blue, he brings in the word gospel when the word does not occur in any of the passages which he surfaces: “When we do the gospel—the whole gospel—the world takes notice and likes what it sees.”[11] It is clear that in Stearns’s mind the gospel is something more than the good news of the cross. It encompasses the obedience of the believer in carrying out the love ethic taught in the Bible. While proclamation of the obedience is good, the labeling of the obedience as part of the gospel is not.[12] The gospel is not something that involves us doing something. It is something that God has done in space and time on our behalf. Our embrace of it by faith drastically changes who we are and what we can do in the world. We must say these things carefully.

Again, Stearns notes the expansive nature of the gospel when he says, “Jesus seeks a new world order in which this whole gospel, hallmarked by compassion, justice, and proclamation of the good news, becomes a reality, first in our hearts and minds, and then in the wider world through our influence.”[13] While he accurately shows here that the vertical leads to the horizontal in our relationships, the gospel (more properly the whole gospel) is something that becomes a reality in Stearns’s way of thinking. It is not something that God has done in space and time (although it no doubt includes that in Stearns’s theology). The implication is that the gospel here is something that is done in the area of compassion and justice along with the proclamation of the good news (gospel?). The mention of the latter in this way makes one wonder if there is more than one gospel that is being discussed: the gospel of eternal life and a wider gospel that includes the narrow gospel plus the life lived out in social action. Such presentations lack clarity and, in my opinion, do not help to generate social action on the part of genuine believers. On the other side, they may lead to a lack of clarity in evangelistic appeals.

Misuse of the Word Gospel Relative to the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

Another area of concern with the book is the author’s misuse of the word gospel concerning the historical debate between fundamental Bible-believing Christians and the liberal modernists in the early twentieth century. We all know the great controversy that caused the divide. The liberals, with their less than biblical views of Jesus, God, man, and Bible, kept the ethical and social action passages. They concentrated on the so-called social gospel. Fundamental Christians kept the miracles, creation, Trinity, and personal redemption. They focused on the saving of souls, not society. While this outline is somewhat simplistic, it is true that both sides lost something. However, most of us would be comfortable understanding that the real losers were the liberals. At this juncture, notice how Stearns looks at this historical controversy:

It’s easy to see how this dividing of the gospel left both sides with only half a gospel, that is, a gospel with a hole in it, as each became satisfied with their particular piece. But this diminution of the whole gospel left both camps with just a shadow of the tremendous power of the good news proclaimed by Jesus. His gospel encompassed not only the forgiveness of sins and the saving of our souls but also the fullness of the coming kingdom of God through a society transformed by His followers.[14]

Stearns accepts the term gospel as used on the liberal side of the divide as a valid way of describing our Christian responsibility to redeem society. On what basis does he do this? He actually gives no Scripture to validate this use when he uses the term. At other places within the chapter he cites Luke 6:43-44 about fruit-bearing and Matthew 5:13 about the salt of the earth. But neither of those passages invokes gospel language to describe these areas of Christian pursuit. The word gospel just seems to be assumed as a valid way of talking about these things.

Also problematic in this section of Stearns’s book is the use of the term kingdom as a synonym at least for the social implementation side of the word gospel. I do not know Stearns’s millennial position, but in the context he seems somewhat antagonistic to premillennialism. He views those who hold that position (which dominated during the rise of the fundamentalist movement) as often so pessimistic that they say “why bother trying to fix the world now?”[15] This may be true for some, but I think on the whole that the fundamentalist movement, including its premillennial brothers, has done better than its public reputation when it comes to loving people in social action.

Social Pre-evangelism as the Gospel

In one section entitled “The Whole Gospel in Action,” Stearns tells the wonderful story of Cambodians coming to Christ after some World Vision workers set up a TB clinic, improved schools, and taught about better agricultural methods. In assessing this situation, Stearns comments, “I knew I had just witnessed the whole gospel—in action.” Now, once again, on the face of it, there is much to commend in this situation. Christians demonstrated that they loved people. As a result those people were more open to the truth about Jesus and embraced him as their Savior, resulting in the birth of a congregation. The need for Christians to do such social activities of love is not being questioned. It is the theological description of these pre-evangelism social actions that brings the concern. The term whole gospel is used to describe them. If Stearns means that Christians, because of their great love for Christ, have come to love people to the point of outward manifestation in social ways, which then in turn leads people to Christ, the use of the term could be justified. However, in keeping with what Stearns has said elsewhere, he most likely means that the social action that can be used in pre-evangelism is in fact part of the gospel itself. This is not in harmony with the Pauline definition of the gospel.

The Gospel and the Kingdom

Throughout the book, the idea of inaugurated eschatology seems to be assumed as it is in much of evangelical thought these days. Such overdose on breathing dominion air, as I have called it elsewhere, is common and expected in the current climate.[16] However, in Stearns one finds a strong linking of the term gospel to the idea of kingdom.[17] This appears several times within the book, but perhaps the clearest is in his chapter entitled “A Mountain of Mustard Seeds” which highlights the kingdom parables of Matthew 13 and constitutes the last chapter of the book.[18] After describing the content of the parable of the mustard seed, Stearns notes, “If a single mustard seed can multiply so dramatically, try to imagine the power of a mountain of mustard seeds—the impact of God’s people, called by God and working collectively through faith to spread the gospel.”[19] Then Stearns cites Luke 17:21 – “The kingdom of God is within you” – without any detailed comment. Thus, the gospel in his previous statement is associated with the idea of kingdom. The force of Stearns’s section appears to take this verse as referring to a kingdom or ruling of Christ inside the heart or inner person of the Christian believer—a common view among evangelicals to be sure.

However, two exegetical factors go another direction. First, the alternative translation of “in your midst” or “among you” is exegetically viable. Here the thought would be that the kingdom is among you in the person of the King, Jesus Christ, rather than being a simple statement of an internal kingdom or rule that is true of the present time. A second problem with taking the translation to mean “within you” is the following context. In verses 22-37, the discussion is about the second coming of Christ. The question which initiates the entire sequence is the timing of the kingdom (v. 20). If one holds to the passage as teaching an inaugurated kingdom within the believer, one must answer why then the focus on the second coming (cp. Matt 24) instead of the first advent in the passage as a whole.

Stearns goes on to say, “This gospel that we have been given—the whole gospel—is God’s vision for a new way of living. It inaugurates the reality of God dwelling within us, His followers, no longer in a temple in Jerusalem.”[20] While it is true that the gospel of eternal life leads to a new way of life for the believer and that God’s Spirit dwells within that believer, the idea of attaching this to the kingdom is problematic. Stearns goes on to invoke the use of Isaiah 61:1 in Luke 4:17-21 to support the idea he is stating:

The power of this gospel was announced by Jesus in a synagogue in Nazareth, when He made an audacious claim—and an outrageous promise that the good news would be preached to the poor and that justice would be restored. The poor would be helped by the rich; the powerful would protect the powerless; the hated would be loved; the brokenhearted would be comforted; the oppressed would be liberated; the downtrodden would be lifted up. God’s kingdom was going to begin on earth through the changed lives of His followers, and its hallmarks would be forgiveness, love, compassion, justice, and mercy. There would be no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female—all would be equal in God’s eyes. This was the essence of the good news of the gospel, the whole gospel. Jesus was to be the firstborn of this new kingdom. He would teach His first followers new kingdom values and give them a vision of a different kind of world.[21]

Again, one sees the combination of kingdom and gospel as the terms help to define each other in Stearns’s approach.

There are a few cautions that need to be mentioned here. First, Stearns’s rendition of Isaiah 61:1 in Luke 4 is a bit of a targum or expanded translation. The actual passage says nothing about the poor being helped by the rich or that the changed lives of believers are the way by which these good things come to pass. I do not deny that Christians should help the downtrodden. There are plenty of passages for that. However, what I deny is that this passage which Stearns uses actually teaches that responsibility. The passage is about the Spirit of the Lord coming upon the Messiah and it is his work, Christ’s work, which does the liberating and releasing according to the passage. Neither Isaiah nor Luke focuses on the believer’s responsibility. This means that Stearns may be reading his theology into this text to bring about a prior conclusion.

Second, there appears to be in Stearns’s thinking a technicality to the term gospel. While its definition is good news, it cannot be said that in every case the word is used in the Bible, it has the same good news in mind. But from Stearns’s point of view, it always seems to mean the whole gospel which includes social action. From my side, I cannot say that the word refers to the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus in every passage. However, just because the word might entail more than what I have called the Pauline definition (1 Cor 15) in one particular passage, does not mean that theologically the term gospel everywhere it occurs should be freighted with the larger scope in my theological outline. In short, I should not pour the expanded meaning into every occurrence in the Bible.[22]

Another area of concern here is how Stearns conflates the Isaiah 61/Luke 4 passage with the well-known passage in Galatians 3:28. I am not sure what Stearns means by “all would be equal in God’s eyes.” Certainly, the context of the passage is soteriological. The idea is that all believers are equal in terms of their position in Christ. It is not at all apparent that social implications are meant by Paul, although that is the direction that Stearns seems to take with his new kingdom language.[23] Stearns brings the passage into the debate assuming quite a lot. Again, while I do not demand that such a work demonstrate a full-blown biblical theology, it must certainly be grounded in biblical theology. On this score, I find Stearns’s presentation unappealing.

Conclusion on The Hole in Our Gospel

While more negative analysis could be given, it is important to restate the highly significant point that Stearns makes: Christians should be more involved in social action as a demonstration of their love for a lost world. In my view, there is nothing wrong with his ultimate agenda. However, the means by which he justifies this need is fraught with a cloudy definition of the gospel, linking of themes such as kingdom to the gospel in tenuous ways, and inexact use of biblical passages. The focus on the “whole gospel” is problematic. It seems to take away from what Christ has accomplished and probably emphasizes too much what Christian believers should do today. No doubt some will assume that such an analysis is justification for a lack of social action on my part. I hope that no one will read me this way. I simply want to be clear and precise in my declaration of the truth.

N. T. Wright And The Implications Of The Gospel

While Stearns is not writing from the perspective of a theologian, N. T. Wright serves as a pastor who is a trained theologian. Consequently, one should not be surprised to find more attempts at precision when it comes to definitions. Nonetheless, there still exist a few examples of a lack of clarity. However, more troublesome may be the times when clarity is not the problem.

Wright and the Pauline Gospel

Wright is well known for his New Perspective views on Paul and justification. His belief in a future justification as well as a past/present aspect of justification has caused quite a stir by those committed to a once-for-all justification by grace through faith in Christ. Some writers have claimed to convert to Roman Catholicism because of his writings and the perceived affinity for the ongoing need for justification.[24]

In light of the controversy about justification, a key Pauline (and Reformation) emphasis, it is not unexpected to see some detailed statements on the definition of the gospel in Wright’s book on justification in response to John Piper:

First, we note once more that Romans 1:16 and 17 are not a statement of “the gospel.” I am aware that some of the things I have sometimes said on this point have been too truncated, and I am sorry for giving wrong impressions. Paul has various ways of summarizing his “gospel.” In Romans itself, he does it in 1:3-5, where it is the proclamation that Jesus, the Messiah, is the risen Lord of the world, summoning the whole world to believing allegiance. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 he does it in terms of the Messiah dying for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and being raised again also in accordance with the Scriptures. But the important point to note is that “the gospel” is a message primarily about Jesus, and about what the one true God has done and is doing though him. By contrast, Romans 1:16-17 is a claim about the effect of the gospel: when it is preached, God’s power goes to work and people are saved. “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” followed by an explanation of what the gospel does, is not the same thing as “here is the gospel itself.”[25]

Here Wright correctly attempts to separate the actual gospel from its implications. This is unlike Stearns’s use of the term “whole gospel” to include virtually all obedience of believers (especially in social action) under the rubric of “gospel.” In addition, Wright demonstrates honesty and humility when he mentions his past writings and statements not being fully clear on the definition of the gospel. Also, his allusion to Romans 1:3-5 with its mention of resurrection is appropriate as is the appeal to 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 where the Pauline gospel is clearly spelled out.

In the section, however, there are a couple of potential problems. First, Wright refers to the gospel as the proclamation that Jesus is the risen Lord of the world, “summoning the whole world to believing allegiance.” I am not sure what “believing allegiance” means. Wright may be thinking of the term obedience of faith in Romans 1:5. The word obedience here could be interpreted as a call to follow Christ in obedience as part of the gospel invitation or part of the gospel itself. Some evangelicals see the obedience of faith here as simply the acceptance of the gospel alluded to in the earlier statement about resurrection in the previous verse. Others see it as the life of obedience that comes from faith in the gospel.[26] My concern here is that the focus might be on what we do instead of on what God has done in history.

Wright also enigmatically speaks of the gospel in this context as something God has both done and is doing through Jesus. To what does the statement about the ongoing work of Christ refer? Wright could be taken as if he is highlighting the ramifications of the gospel in God’s ongoing work as part of the gospel since he sets this up in a definitional way. This approach to definition seems at odds with Wright’s earlier intention to avoid this very mistake. So, even in a section where Wright seeks to bring balance, there remain a few questions about what he means by the word gospel.

The Gospel as Political and Social Mandate

Wright shows that he can move from statements implying the gospel contains within it something that Christians do or should do (see the concern above) to assertions that the gospel is an accomplished fact in history without anything added by Christians: “This announcement [of the gospel], stated as a fact about the way the world is [God has stepped into history and done something] rather than as an appeal about the way that you might like your life, your emotions, or you bank balance to be, is the foundation of everything else.”[27] This quotation has been taken from Wright’s book that was excerpted in an article in Christianity Today titled “Heaven is Not Our Home.”[28] What is interesting is that the subtitle given to the article is “The bodily resurrection is the good news of the gospel—and thus our social and political mandate.”

What are we to make of such wording? First, I do not fault Wright for mentioning the resurrection without any word about the cross. I think it is assumed as he writes. His strong and appreciated focus on the resurrection in his writings does make one wonder if he overpowers the death of Christ (theologically) with the raising of Jesus from the dead. However, I do not attach that overall concern in his writings as a whole to this particular point.

To say that the gospel is our social and political mandate is not the same thing as saying that social action is part of the gospel as Stearns had characterized. The wording allows that there are implications of the gospel that issue forth in social and political ways. Hence, the concern here becomes not the inclusion of social action under the umbrella of gospel language, but the question of whether too close a tie has been made between the gospel and its implications that might lead to confusion.

As one might expect, the place in Wright’s article, where these questions surface, is the mission of the church:

The mission of the church is nothing more or less than the outworking, in the power of the Spirit, of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. It is the anticipation of the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made.[29]

I find nothing particularly disturbing about these two sentences although I might prefer a stronger statement about the task of evangelism with respect to the gospel of eternal life. However, notice how quickly Wright moves to the social implications of the mission based upon Jesus’ resurrection:

If that is so, mission must urgently recover from its long-term schizophrenia. The split between saving souls and doing good in the world is not a product of the Bible or the gospel, but of the cultural captivity of both. The world of space, time, and matter is where real people live, where real communities happen, where difficult decisions are made, where schools and hospitals bear witness to the “now, already” of the gospel while police and prisons bear witness to the “not yet.” The world of space, time, and matter is where parliaments, city councils, neighborhood watch groups, and everything in between are set up and run for the benefit of the wider community, the community where anarchy means that bullies (economic and social as well as physical) will always win, where the weak and vulnerable will always need protecting, and where the social and political structures of society are part of the Creator’s design. And the church that is renewed by the message of Jesus’ resurrection must be the church that goes to work precisely in that space, time, and matter. The church claims this world in advance as the place of God’s kingdom, of Jesus’ lordship, and of the Spirit’s power.[30]

Much of the wording of Wright here needs to be examined. First, he refers implicitly to the divide between the social gospel and the saving of souls that had earlier been mentioned in much the same way in Stearns. However, he notes that the split between the gospel of eternal life and the doing of good (social gospel) did not come from something inherent to the gospel itself but was because of the gospel’s “cultural captivity.” In other words, the cultural times of the early twentieth century forced this conclusion. The implication is that the divide should never have happened. While I agreed earlier that both sides in this debate lost something, it is important that this is said clearly. If the gospel includes its social implications, the problem is the same as Stearns problem. If the intention is to say that the social implications of Christian living (for people truly redeemed) should never have been removed from Christian responsibility, then the statement is more palatable. Still, a stronger statement about the gospel of eternal life needs to be made (I will discuss this more below).

Second, Wright speaks of social institutions and their work (schools and hospitals) as an indication of the “now, already” of the gospel. A couple of concerns can be voiced, however. Wright does not specify the schools or hospitals as distinctly Christian in their work. Perhaps that is assumed. The fact that some good, as measured by the world, is being done does not make something automatically an implication of the gospel of Christ. I am sure that the administrators of Jewish hospitals might be offended by such a claim if that is being said. They would see their own love or service ethic worked out from within their own worldview. If the work of Christian schools and hospitals is meant, then the significance of the gospel can be discussed. Another concern here is that the social work (the now of the gospel) envisioned by Wright is crafted as inaugurated eschatology—kingdom language for today—just like Stearns and most evangelicals have stated. If this is related to the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, I see no biblical warrant for such a stance.[31]

Third, as I have read much of Wright’s writings in addition to the one cited here, I have come to the conclusion that the insistence of undoing the divide between the gospel and social action is overwhelmingly one-sided. From Stearns’s point of view I can understand it since he has an agenda based upon a ministry of social action. However, somehow I expect more from Wright. He is lauded as a conservative by many. This is true to a point. He has debated many scholars and churchmen who are far left of him. His stand against classical liberalism appears to be quite strong and his insistence that Jesus is physically alive is refreshing. However, Wright consistently makes the correction on the conservative side. It is the conservatives who must change and embrace the social action implied by the gospel. I never see him hammer in quite the same way the need for liberals to give up their anti-supernatural bias and embrace the gospel of eternal life. In one erudite, scholarly tome where he reacts to many viewpoints, I found that he mentioned the death and resurrection of Christ but never used the word gospel.[32] In another debate book with a liberal, Wright strongly defends the death and resurrection of Christ.[33] For this he is to be greatly applauded. However, I have never seen a statement emphasizing the need for the liberal church to give up its rejection of the supernatural and its mere clinging to the social gospel and include the gospel of eternal life so that individual souls can be saved. I have not read all of Wright’s works, but I have read enough to see that there is much more emphasis on the need for conservatives to heed the social implications of the gospel than there is for the liberals to heed the spiritual implications of that same gospel. I find this one-sided in the presentation.

Conclusion

I have given initial critiques of Richard Stearns and N. T. Wright, finding fault in their handling of the relationship of social action to the gospel of Christ. There is much to commend in both authors. However, in the end there is the potential for much confusion that could hinder the clarity of gospel invitations. I was challenged to see how anyone reading their writings could come to faith in Christ (although reading Stearns on this point is a greater advantage). Other authors and statements could be chosen for evaluation as well. My choice of these two case studies should not be seen as identifying two really bad men to avoid. I think the problem is pervasive in the Christian world. The Lausanne Covenant established by the Lausanne Movement in 1974 stated, “Evangelization requires the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.”[34] The “whole gospel” apparently includes social implications of what Jesus did for us: “As gospel people we must believe, live, and communicate all that makes the gospel staggeringly comprehensive good news.”[35] However, as I look at things, as a Christian I can only participate in the communication of the gospel by word and deed. This is truly a great thing. But the gospel itself, the “staggeringly comprehensive good news” is something that God has done in space and time–on a hill outside of Jerusalem two thousand years ago and at a tomb not far away. The historical fact of those events and how God viewed them constitutes the gospel. We must guard with precision this historicity. Everything depends upon it. We must insist upon it even when we are accused of not loving people enough by taking such a stance.

Notes

1. This paper was originally written for and delivered at the Bible Summit held at Maranatha Baptist Seminary, Watertown, WI, July 2830, 2010.
2. Richard Stearns, The Hole in Our Gospel (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009).
3. Ibid., 53-63.
4. Ibid., 64-72.
5. Ibid., 73-87. This chapter is poignantly entitled “A Hole in Me.” It is the personal nature of the book that endears people to what Stearns is saying. See also his later chapter labeled “Putting the American Dream to Death” (203-09).
6. Ibid., 209.
7. Ibid., 210-20. In this chapter, Stearns often discusses the giving of Christians in terms of tithing. I am not necessarily presenting the call to tithe as the best way to suggest my support of Stearns on this point. I am merely noting what all pastors struggle with and that is the lack of financial support on the part of professing Christians.
8. Ibid., 2-3.
9. Elsewhere Stearns says that “this gospel—the whole gospel— means much more than the personal salvation of individuals. It means a social revolution” (20; emphasis original).
10. Ibid., 186.
11. Ibid; emphasis is original.
12. Ibid., 124. In this later chapter, Stearns cites Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 9:6-15. Verse 13 is the crucial verse: “men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ.” It is quite easy to see that Paul is praising the Corinthians because their care and love for the poor helps to demonstrate to the world their attachment to a Christ who loves that world. Stearns would agree with this. But he goes further: “There’s that ‘whole gospel’ again that is so attractive to people, giving evidence of the coming kingdom of God.” The word gospel is stretched to include not only what God has done through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, but also to include the positive behavior of Christians who prove their attachment to Christ by social action.
13. Ibid., 243.
14. Ibid., 201.
15. Ibid.
16. Mike Stallard, “The Future of Dispensationalism” (paper presented at the National Evangelical Theological Society, Toronto, Canada, November 2002).
17. In doing this, Stearns really does not address the particular exegetical issues involved in passages where it is said that Jesus was preaching the gospel of the kingdom (e.g., see Matt 4:23).
18. Stearns, A Hole in Our Gospel, 274-79.
19. Ibid., 276.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. I am referring here to the problem of illegitimate totality transfer.
23. This discussion about social implications of Galatians 3:28 is part of the debate over so-called evangelical feminism.
24. See Mike Stallard, “Roman Catholicism and the New Perspective on Paul Part 4.” JMAT 14, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 5-24.
25. N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 180-81. Wright’s book is a response to John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007).
26. For some of the exegetical options in this verse, see Robert Mounce, New American Commentary: Romans (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995), 62.
27. N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 227.
28. N. T. Wright, “Heaven is Not Our Home,” Christianity Today, April 2008, 36-39.
29. Ibid., 38-39.
30. Ibid., 39. For a similar sentiment, see N. T. Wright, “Mere Mission: Interview with Tim Stafford,” Christianity Today, January 2007, 41.
31. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address inaugurated eschatology. I must simply state at this point that I do not see the exegetical support for the claim as we go through the debated passages such as Acts 2, Hebrews 1-2, Daniel 7, etc.
32. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress P, 1992).
33. Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperOne, 2007).
34. See Christopher J. H. Wright, “Whole Gospel, Whole Church, Whole World,” Christianity Today, October 2009, 30.
35. Ibid., 32.