Aaron Menikoff, The Church and Social Reform

What ought church involvement in social reform or social ministry look like? Prescriptions for evangelical social engagement are always very interesting. As believers we certainly have a responsibility to investigate Scripture that we might understand our role in the community. This of course is the impetus behind such great works as Niebuhr’s classic Christ and Culture and even Don Carson’s more recent reflections on the same topic, Christ and Culture Revisited in which he called us to a robust biblical theology that will produce

a biblical vision that focuses on Christ and his cross, on the links between this world and the next, on bold Christian living and faithful witness, and on a large-scale vision that makes the world our parish while loving the neighbor next door, raises our eyes above ourselves, and delights in the glory of God (228).

What a wonderful goal: biblical theology leading to a biblical vision of self-sacrifice that ultimately glorifies God. This is a prescription for the Christian concerned with more than himself, a Christian concerned for society—a worthy implication of Christ and his cross. 

We need prescriptions, we need to understand as accurately as possible what we ought to do when it comes to engaging with those outside the church. The Bible is clear about the ministries of evangelism and discipleship, but it is less clear about the role of the Christian or the church and society-at-large. Verses like Galatians 6:10 are profound yet few. In short, prescriptions are helpful. However we need descriptions as well.

We need to know what our brothers and sisters in Christ have done. How have they engaged society? What did social reform look like for them? This is what I’ve been considering for the past few years as I’ve been working on a dissertation at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. My research focused on Baptists from the revolutionary era to the dawn of the Civil War but the conclusions certainly apply to Protestants of the other denominations in the time period. Historical descriptions are no substitute for contemporary prescriptions but they serve as helpful reminders nonetheless that we are not the first to have thought about or struggled with a particular issue.

My overarching conclusion is that Baptists were in fact social reformers. They cared about society and wanted to see society change for the better. This was not postmillennial eschatology working itself out or perfectionist theology finding a home in social ministry nor was it a sanctified version of social control. Baptists believed that following Christ required they work toward a holy nation.

A secondary conclusion addresses how these believers sought to reform society. They aimed at this two ways: through indirect and direct means. The indirect means were primary. They believed that when the gospel took root in the believer’s life that individual would become a virtuous citizen. Virtuous citizens were good for the nation. Thus the best way to reform the nation was to share the gospel. Be changed by the gospel. Baptists and other evangelicals of the nineteenth century were very clear on this point. They did not limit social reform to discrete acts of benevolence. Personal piety was social reform because without the increase of the gospel society was surely lost. Direct social reform existed as well. In the early nineteenth century, when a church in Savannah, Georgia, saw that individuals in the street were dying of hunger, it formed a welfare committee to help the poor. The city had no welfare services, people were in need, and the church act immediately, directly. It did more than preach—it served. Direct avenues of social reform were not foreign to nineteenth-century Baptists and other Christians.

A final conclusion is the observation that Christians disagreed over the extent of direct involvement Christians and churches should have in social ministries.  The temperance movement of the early to mid-nineteenth century is a great example. Some Christians thought churches should be temperance societies—for the sake of the well-being of society, for society’s reformation. Others thought that churches should stay away from the temperance movement and stick to preaching the gospel. All agreed Christians should benefit society indirectly. They disagreed over the propriety of direct social reform.

Sound familiar? Similar discussions rage today as faithful Christians seek to understand their role as followers of Christ with a message of eternal life in a fallen world. This brings us back to the reality that descriptions only get us so far. Historians are helpful but sometimes we need theologians to rattle the cage. Baptist pastor and educator Basil Manly Sr. did just that in 1837. He expected that when the gospel worked itself out in the believer’s life it would affect how he lived: “Benevolence fulfills our destiny, “ he preached. “What were we made for? We should accomplish some things. We should not be willing to live in the world, and have it not better for our being in it. And how much good a plain man may do!”

Comments

[Mark Lamprecht]

Aaron,

Thank you for the balanced article. This is certainly a tough and, potentially, controversial topic.

I think your sentenced that sums up what we're missing today is, "Thus the best way to reform the nation was to share the gospel. Be changed by the gospel."

There is a sense today in which we've lost the Gospel. Not only is it watered down, but it is also not taught in a way that is applicable to our daily lives.

Also, one of today's Gospel reforms that misses the mark is orthopraxy over orthodoxy. The Gospel is certainly an objective, propositional truth though that is just the beginning of the Gospel. So while some in the current evangelical climate understand some of the social problems in the church, they've over-shot and missed the mark.

Indeed, this is a difficult topic.

Mark