Michael Horton has written a brilliant piece posted over at 9Marks called Transforming Culture With a Messiah Complex. In the article he makes the case very well that the often quoted “incarnational ministry” phrase actually stands in a long line with social gospel movers and shakers. He says,
So when a conservative Southern Baptist like Rick Warren embraces “new measures” in church growth by advocating a vision of the church as an army of reformers who can end the plagues of disease, war, and poverty as well as promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, and alcoholism, he stands in a long line leading from Finney to Strong to Sunday to Graham. “Deeds, not Creeds!” used to be the mantra of the social gospel of mainline churches, but Warren has revived it today as if it were newly minted. After a brief dispensationalist interlude, American evangelicals returned to their more positive and triumphant (postmillennial) message of transforming American culture into “a shining city upon a hill.”
In essence he points out that what is being attempted is really nothing more than a resurrection of the social gospel of our predeseccors. He goes on to talk about the cultural transfomation efforts of our time as really a substitute for Christ and His true work.
Evangelicals have been talking lately about transforming the culture, doing kingdom work in all of life, and incarnating the church in the world. Sound good? The trouble is, these movements can conceive of the church as a substitute for Christ, shifting the focus of Christians from his promised return to your best life now.
In fact, “incarnational” is becoming a dominant adjective in evangelical circles, often depriving Christ’s person and work of its specificity and uniqueness.[9] Christ’s person and work easily becomes a “model” or “vision” for ecclesial action (imitatio Christi), rather than a completed event to which the church offers its witness.[10] We increasingly hear about “incarnational ministry,” as if Christ’s unique personal history could be repeated or imitated. The church, whether conceived in “high church” or “low church” terms, rushes in to fill the void, as the substitute for its ascended Lord. In its train, the sacramental cosmos returns. As Christ and his work is assimilated to the church and its work, similar conflations emerge between the gospel and culture; between the word of God and the experience of our particular group; and between the church’s commission and the transformation of the kingdoms of this age into the kingdom of Christ.
I commend this article to you as a very good read and wake-up call to the church today.
Thoughts?
[Update] Michael Horton’s article is one of several related articles in the November/December 2007 9Marks online journal. Click here.
December 19, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I think we need to be careful not to make “deeds and creeds” or “Christ’s work and the church’s work” a false dichotomy. The people of the creeds should be united in performing the deeds. Christ’s work engenders and empowers and church’s work. I think the church can be both completely reliant upon Christ’s finished work for salvation and completely committed to social action. Of course, will not see a complete end to poverty, injustice, and oppression until Christ comes to consummate his kingdom, but until then, we should be radically committed to working toward these goals by the Spirit’s power and in the freedom of the gospel. That’s just my take.
December 19, 2007 at 9:32 pm
By the way, I LOVE how Horton talks so much about the importance of the ascension. This is s a crucial aspect of Christ’s work and our biblical theology, one which is often ignored and leads to a distorted eschatology.