Reading some contemporary radical, emergent or liberal christian writers I am struck that conservative Christians are often accused of ignoring, downplaying or even denying some insights because of an obsession with certain narrow shibboleths. Those who make this accusation very frequently, in their turn, ignore, downplay or outright deny the very element that the conservatives enthuse about. I couldn't say that it is deliberate, but in accusing conservatives of caricaturing the faith, a doorway is often opened to make outright denial of the faith appear balanced and reasonable.
In fact, when you begin to look at the accusations of imbalance, the antitheses being set up seem to me to be almost routinely false and unfair. I wanted to write about some of them.
1) Spiritual/eternal salvation versus temporal/social salvation
It is common in liberal theological discourse to critique conservatives for having a heart set so much on a heavenly hope that they are of no earthly use. Aspects of the critique (as ever) have some truth of course; the notion of the future hope as "heavenly" in the sense of spiritual-but-not-physical is not a biblical one, but it still pervades much popular piety. And an under-realised eschatology (so much "Not Yet" that there is no room for "Now") also saps at present usefulness. Some streams of dispensationalism, which assign us the role in the present age of simply "holding the fort till he come" have gone hand in hand with churches supporting some hideous social injustices. All of these things can be granted. But a strong hope in the coming kingdom as involving new creation, a future, transformed, physical world and a conscious eternity in the presence of the King is also sneered at, as if, in itself, such a hope made a focus on peace, justice and transformation in this present age quite impossible.
This is simply not the case. In fact, exactly the opposite could be maintained. It is the hope of final judgement and future transformation which is the ground on which present efforts to change the world are based. It is the moral imperative of an invisible, spiritual realm, of a final judgement to come, which gives concern for this present age its bite and passion.
Why does the Good really matter? Why is injustice such an offense? Why should I care about truth, about corruption, about exploitation, about evil?
Christ died at the hands of human beings in the greatest outrage of injustice, spite, duplicity, cruelty and wrath against God that the world has ever seen. Given a chance to murder our Creator, we did exactly that. In the resurrection, God said that such injustice would not have the upper hand - indeed, by this same Man he will judge the world he created. We live between that great statement of intent and the day of judgement it promises. As we live between the Injustice of the cross, and the great Justice to which the resurrection points, how can we not take up the struggle against all that is evil? Failure to do this would show us to be as out of touch with the purpose of the cross as would a failure to seek personal holiness on the grounds of the abounding of grace. If you know grace, you hate sin. If you hate what we did at the cross, you hate injustice wherever you find it.
In fact, it is in the very passages where Jesus most sternly teaches on the reality of the two eternal destinies that we find his strongest words on compassion and practical care. What is the criterion for the final judgement? Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. Such are the works that inevitably follow faith, as James hammers home to us; such is the judgement that will decide our eternal destiny.
This is why the recovery of serious, eternity-oriented Christianity has so often gone hand in hand with a revival of practical concern for others, and especially for the righting of social wrongs and injustices. The Evangelical awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries became the foundation stone for many social reforms that are taken for granted in the present day, even by many who have no clue as to their roots in Christian piety. The existence of trades unions and all of the rights and protections that have been won for workers over the years; prison reform; slavery's abolition; child labour reform and provision of schooling; a raised age of consent as a safeguard against human trafficking... the list goes on. Eighteenth century Anglican Deism with its distant, theoretical, non-miracle-working god and calm, drawing-room politeness was not a world-changing faith - Methodism was.
Why does the Good really matter? Why is injustice such an offense? Why should I care about truth, about corruption, about exploitation, about evil?
Christ died at the hands of human beings in the greatest outrage of injustice, spite, duplicity, cruelty and wrath against God that the world has ever seen. Given a chance to murder our Creator, we did exactly that. In the resurrection, God said that such injustice would not have the upper hand - indeed, by this same Man he will judge the world he created. We live between that great statement of intent and the day of judgement it promises. As we live between the Injustice of the cross, and the great Justice to which the resurrection points, how can we not take up the struggle against all that is evil? Failure to do this would show us to be as out of touch with the purpose of the cross as would a failure to seek personal holiness on the grounds of the abounding of grace. If you know grace, you hate sin. If you hate what we did at the cross, you hate injustice wherever you find it.
In fact, it is in the very passages where Jesus most sternly teaches on the reality of the two eternal destinies that we find his strongest words on compassion and practical care. What is the criterion for the final judgement? Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. Such are the works that inevitably follow faith, as James hammers home to us; such is the judgement that will decide our eternal destiny.
This is why the recovery of serious, eternity-oriented Christianity has so often gone hand in hand with a revival of practical concern for others, and especially for the righting of social wrongs and injustices. The Evangelical awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries became the foundation stone for many social reforms that are taken for granted in the present day, even by many who have no clue as to their roots in Christian piety. The existence of trades unions and all of the rights and protections that have been won for workers over the years; prison reform; slavery's abolition; child labour reform and provision of schooling; a raised age of consent as a safeguard against human trafficking... the list goes on. Eighteenth century Anglican Deism with its distant, theoretical, non-miracle-working god and calm, drawing-room politeness was not a world-changing faith - Methodism was.
Ironically it is when Christianity is reduced to doing good in the here and now, when the supernatural, the miraculous and the eternal - hope and dread - are rejected or at least marginalised, that it becomes LESS earthly use. When doctrine has been sheared of its more offensive corners, then faith becomes an innocuous moralising, a toothless tendency, not a militant movement out to overthrow injustice and cruelty.
It was not as a theological liberal that General William Booth of the Salvation Army said;
While Women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight, I’ll fight to the very end!
That concern for the practical and social had at its heart a concern for the eternal;
“Not called!' did you say?
'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.
Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
Nor was it as a theological liberal that Wesley wrote to Wilberforce;
Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.
That concern for the practical and social had at its heart a concern for the eternal;
“Not called!' did you say?
'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.
Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
Nor was it as a theological liberal that Wesley wrote to Wilberforce;
Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.
May God help us so to recover such a vibrant sense of the imminent age to come, of future judgement, and of a genuinely divided eternal destiny that we are energised into fresh evangelism and social action in the present age.
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