Here we will discuss a basic, though somewhat misleading, question. Some interpret the question as asking, in essence, whether Christian mission should focus on evangelization and salvation or on dealing with the problems of society here and now. Stating the question in this form, we can give only one answer: The Christian mission must focus on salvation, not society.
However, a scent of fallacy exists in putting the question this way, in putting salvation and society in opposition. They should be placed in juxtaposition, because the Christian mission— what Christ does in the world—must deal with both salvation and society. “The only remedy for the sins and sorrows of men is Christ. The gospel of His grace alone can cure the evils that curse society.”1 So the focus must be on both salvation and society.
There are two popular misconceptions. The first: Morality is limited to private, personal behavioral matters. The second: The development of public policy, purely a secular, political matter, or an economic, technological issue, does not need to seriously concern Christians.
Christians believe in religious moral values, with the dignity and value of each human being created in the image of God as the most important. Doesn’t some kind of social morality and responsibility fl ow from this basic belief? Thus, do not policy choices in government have at least a link to—some would say a basis in—moral principles? Furthermore, do we not live in a world where its components have become increasingly interdependent in their current nature, and doesn’t interdependence involve a moral dynamic?
Christ’s prototypical example
Christ’s example is of prototypical importance. On the one hand, He formulated no sociopolitical platform on which His church could stand and conduct its program. The temptations in the wilderness were, to some extent, political in nature. He had at least three opportunities to take over society by acoup d’etat of sorts: (1) the feeding of the multitude in Galilee (Luke 9:13–17),2 (2) His triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:30–44), and (3) the experience with Peter’s sword in the Garden of Gethsemane and the available twelve divine legions (Matt. 26:51–53).
Yet Jesus rejected crusaderism and zealot-like kingship. On the other hand, the teachings of Jesus have a significant societal fallout. In what some have called His “inaugural address” (Luke 4:16–21), Jesus, quoting from Isaiah 61, presents the Messianic task as a social one (after all, good news must have a social dimension): good news for the poor; freedom for the captives, sight for the blind, liberty for the oppressed. Christ’s ministry makes it clear that He was not talking exclusively about spiritual poverty, blindness, and oppression.
No wonder, then, that the Adventist pioneers did have a societal agenda, albeit a somewhat limited one. This small scale was almost inevitable due to the size of the church and its limited resources. They opposed slavery, called for health and educational reform, and promoted temperance and anti-alcohol and anti-smoking causes. They were interested also in the needs of children and women.
Today, the church is much larger and the fi nancial and institutional resources much bigger. In some countries Adventists have become a signifi cant segment of the population. Adventists have even been heads of state. Opting out of social responsibility would be irresponsible. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) has become a major player on the world stage of society.
Poverty and hunger are daily problems with several thousand children dying every day from malnutrition. Every 30 seconds someone dies of malaria in Africa. Global warming and global pollution are problems along with the destruction of nonrenewable energy sources. Adventists have long advocated a simple lifestyle to help reduce some of these problems. We must vigorously come to grips with the AIDS pandemic and play a significant role in promoting human rights and the nondiscrimination of various groups, including women and the handicapped.
With peacemaking as another essential cause, Adventist schools have been asked to set aside one week each school year to emphasize, through various programs, peacemaking, respect, confl ict resolution, and reconciliation as an Adventist contribution to a culture of social harmony and peace.
You cannot deal effectively with poverty, hunger, and discrimination by simply offering relief and helping those who suffer; it is also necessary to work on changing the causes. ADRA has understood this point. Such a position, however, inevitably brings contact with the political sphere.
Doctrine of Creation and doctrine of man
First of all, social responsibility has, as its basis, the doctrine of Creation. God willed to create, ex nihilo, a universe distinct from Himself and established humans as the stewards of this world.
We also find social responsibility inherent in the doctrine of man. The parameters of the church’s social service lie within the nature of humans. With human beings created in the image of God and marred by sin, the dignity of the child of God becomes restored through the process of salvation. Such an appreciation entails concrete ethical and social responsibility. The Christian concept that humans are not flotsam on the sea of time but people with a potential for a radiant future gives purpose and energy to the Christian mission. Like his Lord, the Christian disciple of Christ must discern in every human being “infinite possibilities.”3
While Christian social responsibility rests on the doctrines of Creation and man, the soteriological principle provides its teleology. When the church and its members relate to society, salvation as the ultimate purpose must dominate. Christian social responsibility does not simply result from humanitarian impulses, though of course that is also there, but it springs from a much deeper level, the desire that “they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). This fullness of life involves conversion, reconciliation, and faith, or in one word, salvation, but also a healthier and happier life. Christian virtues have social implications, and thus Christianity can be identified as a social religion. Religious beliefs inevitably shape socioeconomic views and political actions. Religious values must be allowed to have, and will have, a societal fallout.
Evangelism and social responsibility
In view of the current tendency toward church political involvement, one may ask, What is the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility? One traditional view equates mission with evangelism. Another view puts evangelism on the back burner or gives it the pejorative connotation of proselytism, and it concentrates on the social gospel instead.
The biblical view of mission sees it as service in word and action. In this service concept, a synthesis between evangelism and social activity exists. John Stott has presented three ways of relating evangelism and social outreach:4
1. Social action as “a means to evangelism” (preparatory to evangelism)
2. Social action as a “manifestation,” aspect or part, “of evangelism”
3. Social action as a “partner” or a parallel activity “of evangelism”
The third view seems the more correct and the one supported by Stott with both evangelism and social service needed. Though supporting each other, they become separate aspects of mission. With evangelism as the overarching responsibility, the immediate priority may differ. Think for example of the wounded man on the Jericho road. What was his priority need that day—medical care or a Bible study about the state of the dead?
A part of either salvation or service is to provide fellow human beings with a sense of meaning and purpose, with an awareness that they are not destined to travel down life’s short or long road toward meaninglessness and therefore nothingness. We need to provide men and women with a raison d’être, what Senator Barack Obama has called “a narrative act to their lives.”5
We must reach beyond evangelism of the individual—though this is central—and apply the transforming power of the gospel to society. The metaphors that Jesus uses in Matthew 5 regarding this change brought about by the Christian mission include salt and light. This means that Christians must penetrate and permeate secular, that is, non-Christian, society. After all, if Christians stay in the saltshaker or hide in the security of the church fortress, they are of little good.
Do not the metaphors of salt and light imply that Christians can change the stale, decaying, and dark environment and improve society? We are not talking of the social gospel, for its weakness and wrongness is that it claims the power to perfect society here and now. We can, however, improve society and its corrupt composition.
Christians and politics
With such questions before us, we cannot avoid the thorny issue of the Christian and politics. The danger of politics is that it tends, if we are not careful, to make the world our all. Political domains can rarely, perhaps never, be made truly Christian. To imagine that Christian standards, which are higher than those accepted by society, can be successfully applied to government and society in general is quite unrealistic.
Is it possible to apply the principles of the Sermon on the Mount in the general political arena? Love cannot be legislated or institutionalized, nor can selfi shness—the root of probably the most evil in society—be eradicated by bills, laws, and votes, but “only through submission to Christ.”6Nevertheless, in regard to intemperance, Ellen G. White, a leader in the temperance and prohibition movement in the late nineteenth century, pointed out that “there is a cause for the moral paralysis” afflicting society when laws sustain evils that undermine the very foundation of the country’s legal system. It is thus irresponsible for Christians to simply “deplore the wrongs which they know exist, but consider themselves free from all responsibility in the matter. This cannot be. Every individual exerts an influence in society.”7 Logic allows us to extrapolate Ellen White’s thinking and apply it through parallelism to other corresponding and current situations.
In politics, at least three problems and two dangers exist. Among the problems: (1) compromise, (2) expediency, and (3) Christian standards seen as unrealistic. The two dangers: (1) the church trying to “churchify” society and the state, and (2) society “politicizing” the church in such a way that Christian faith becomes interpreted in terms of political values. You have then, secular, socialist right-wing, radical left-wing, or whatever values penetrating the church. Hardly the best witness, to be sure.
Here the separation of church and state enters into the picture. Its purpose is not to exclude the voice of morality—Christianity (if you wish)— from public debate and influence. It provides the context of religious liberty so that moral insights of religion can be freely expressed and tested without discrimination, hindrance, or favoritism.
Christians should participate in the public forum, offering a significant ethical vision. Yes, the church must be separate from the state but not alienated from or indifferent to society. Religious leaders must, though, walk carefully and circumspectly when in the public arena. Politics cannot be identified as gospel, nor the gospel as politics. Politics is often tainted, even corrupt; at best, it is ambivalent. Christians can easily be contaminated, and churches risk losing the respect and aura of virtue when they get too politically involved. The church can be seen as, or become in reality, a faction or handmaiden of secular interests.
At the same time Christians can play a positive, though difficult, role in public affairs. When should they speak out and act in society? I suggest tentatively seven “when’s,” perhaps erring a little on the conservative side. The temptation will always be there to open the doors wider to intervention.
1. When questions have clear moral answers (not as frequently as it may seem)
2. When questions are incapable of alternative moral characterizations
3. When basic personal rights are at stake
4. When religious liberty is at stake
5. When salvation of individuals is involved
6. When the Christian view reflects a united, well thought-out opinion
7. When there is a reasonable expectation of a positive outcome of the intervention, or at least that some improvement would likely result
Eschatological hope should increase service
Having affirmed the all-importance of the otherworldly, salvific dimension, we need to confess that as Christians we have at times turned a blind service eye to the earthly realities of oppression, exploitation of workers, women, the weak, racism, and other discriminatory practices. On the contrary, the eschatological hope of Adventists should and must increase both service to society and sensitivity to the crying needs of fellow human beings. As Jan Paulsen, president of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has said, “We are not just creatures of a spiritual environment. We are actively interested in everything that shapes the way we live, and we are concerned about the well-being of our planet.”8
In essence, the church’s responsibility for the world means to prepare men and women to meet their God and soon-coming Lord. This does not mean that Second Advent–oriented Christians dream a utopian vision of millennial pie in the apocalyptic sky. Christians will be active seed planters, not just sin plaintiffs. The followers of Jesus need today, perhaps more than ever, to concentrate upon “doing what is good . . . and profitable for everyone” (Titus 3:8, NIV), and “everyone” means society. Living out such a life of blessing includes dealing with both salvation and society.
1 Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1941), 254.
2 All referenced scripture is from the King James Version unless otherwise noted.
3 White, Education (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1952), 80.
4 See John Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World (London: Falcon Books, 1975), 26–8.
5 Garret M. Graff, “The Legend of Barack Obama,” Washingtonian (November 2006), 122, 3.
6 White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1941), 254.
7 ———, “Temperance and the License Law,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, November 8, 1881, par. 9.
8 Ray Dabrowski, ed., “A Seventh-day Adventist Call for Peace,” Statements, Guidelines, and other Documents (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., April 18, 2002), 78.
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