The Social Responsibility of the Church -- By: Paul Benware
Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 12:1 (Winter 1971)
Article: The Social Responsibility of the Church
Author: Paul Benware
GJ 12:1 (Wtr 71) p. 3
The Social Responsibility of the Church
Instructor in Bible
Los Angeles Baptist College
No responsible believer in Jesus Christ is happy about the presence of such social evils as racial hatred, a spiraling crime rate, the liquor and drug traffic, slums and violence. He realizes that such conditions as these have the potential to destroy his society and therefore ought to be checked. But the problem facing the Christian and the church is their role in curing the ills of society. What is the church’s responsibility in the area of social problems? Should the church involve itself in these problems? If so, to what extent? These questions are not easily answered and debate goes on within the church. Hudson Armerding has stated the problem revealing the issue involved: “How may the secular world be confronted, without the probability of an accommodation that eventually will produce capitulation?”1
Neo-evangelicalism has declared that the church must get involved in the problems of society or lose its voice and impact in that society. It states that Fundamentalists have overreacted against the social gospel of the old modernist, thus terribly neglecting the social area.2
Fundamentalism, on the other hand, warns Neo-evangelicalism that it is taking a dangerous step, which likely will lead to the watering down of the complete message of the Bible, and to the further secularization of the church. The Fundamentalist believes that the church is to catch fish out of the pond of sin, while the Neo-evangelical feels that something must be done to clean up the pond as well.
The Neo-Evangelical View of Social Responsibility
Dr. Harold Ockenga, the “father” of neo-evangelicalism, sounded the keynote of the movement pertaining to social problems.
The New Evangelicalism differs from Fundamentalism in its willingness to handle the social problems which
GJ 12:1 (Wtr 71) p. 4
Fundamentalism has evaded. There need be no dichotomy between the personal gospel and the social gospel. The true Christian faith is a supernatural personal experience of salvation and a social philosophy….
Fundamentalism abdicated leadership and responsibility in the societal realm and thus became impotent to change society or to solve social problems. The New Evangelicalism adheres to all the orthodox teachings of Fundamentalism but has evolved a social philosophy.3
This is an emphasis made by others as well.
Nevertheless—unlike fundamentalism—evangelicalism realizes th...
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