Over at the Gospel Coalition blog, Justin Taylor has written a post echoing Tony Payne’s “six propositions on the relationship of evangelism to social action.” The propositions are:Evangelism and social action are distinct activities
Prayerful proclamation is central to the work of the Lord
Evangelism and social activism are inseparable
Social activism is unconditional love, not a tactic
Social action is not a magic evangelistic bullet
The Great Commission is to make and teach
Well, I thought it would be fun to draft an alternate set of theses from a Reformed Two Kingdoms perspective (some people abbreviate this as “R2K,” albeit misspelling “R-e-f-o-r-m-e-d” as “R-a-d-i-c-a-l” for some reason). Warning: these are a bit more unwieldy than Payne’s, and they probably won’t fit onto bumper stickers, but no one ever said the Reformed were good at being pithy.
Off we go, then....
1. All calls to “social action” must henceforth be reworded as calls to just love our neighbors without talking about it so much.
I realize that telling people to love others doesn’t sound nearly as catchy and seemingly-progressive as “working for social justice,” but at the same time it doesn’t suffer from delusions of grandeur, either. In other words, I can help my neighbor jumpstart his car, but I can’t resolve the plague of harsh working conditions endured by the people who made it.
2. Loving our neighbors must be distinguished from thinking that regeneration is the religious version of Neo learning Kung-Fu by means of an instantaneous upload of knowledge and expertise to his brain.
Just because we have the Holy Spirit living inside us doesn’t mean we know how to solve society’s problems any better than those demon-possessed politicians do. God has authored two books, and the one with the special revelation in it is designed to make us “wise unto salvation,” not wise unto solving the financial crisis.
3. Moral claims about social problems must be distinguished from actual solutions to those problems.
It’s OK to be perfectly certain that abortion is wrong while also being perfectly agnostic about what to do about it. In other words, a moral principle is one thing, but it’s quite another to put that principle into practice. Knowing the difference between the two, and showing the humility that comes with that knowledge, will go a long way toward making ourselves seem less like the know-it-alls that we often appear to be.
4. Calling for Social Justice is meaningless unless everyone already agrees on what a just society would look like.
One man’s utopian dream is another man’s nightmarish dystopia, and until we agree on whose cultural vision is the right one, then “Social Justice” will remain a bare slogan with no content. I mean, if I followed many church leaders’ advice and took a “prophetic” stance toward the culture from the pulpit next Sunday, it would be interesting to see the expressions on my congregants’ faces when I call on them to boycott Nike or march against the World Bank and IMF. Not everyone’s a capitalist, is what I’m saying.
5. Two people may believe the same Bible, but vote for opposing candidates.
I’ll go even further: two people may be equally pro-life and still vote for opposing candidates (even if one of them is pro-life and the other isn’t). This goes back to what I said above about the difference between identifying a problem and finding its solution. There are a lot of ways that life can be threatened in our culture, one of which is abortion. But there’s also war, sickness, and poverty (the latter of which is often the occasion for abortion). It is a mistake to think that casting a vote means endorsing everything a candidate stands for. Sometimes good strategy may necessitate addressing an issue indirectly rather than directly.
6. Social activism among Christians does not necessitate doctrinal agreement between participants.
If you want to join with other believers in a march against gay marriage or a rally in favor of universal health care, you don’t have to first draft a Joint Statement on the Relationship of Justification to Sanctification before you do it. The more the line distinguishing the spiritual and temporal kingdoms is erased, the faster we will subordinate doctrinal clarity to the grander aim of winning the culture war (ECT anyone?). Better to give expression to our heavenly citizenship on the Lord’s Day—with all its attendant exclusivity—and then, if there’s a cause to march for during the week, let us by all means link arms with whatever Catholics, Mormons, and atheists who wish to join us.
(Unless they’re Celtics fans, but that goes without saying....)
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