I read lately a speech that the late Pastor D. James Kennedy gave to incoming Theological Seminar students that really helped my understand of the “social gospel” and “social ministry” that has, by-and-large caused the decline in the Christian church in America.
Dr. Kennedy told the freshman class, you will be learning the Cultural Mandate. The Cultural Mandate is found in Genesis 1:28, where man was commanded to have dominion over the earth. Jesus said we are not only to be light, but we are to be salt. We are to proclaim the good tidings of the Gospel, but also, we are to keep the world from utterly corrupting. Even the Great Commission contains a cultural mandate in it: “Make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). That is exactly what the Cultural Mandate endeavors to do.
We need to see what God has to say about economics, about government. Thank God the Founders of this country searched the Bible and found in the Bible the basis for the government that we enjoy in this country. But, alas, that has been long forgotten. One of the reasons for that is what is called “pietism.” I asked several people recently if they knew what pietism was. They didn’t. It is not to be confused with piety. Now piety is a wonderful thing. Piety is a certain attitude of reverence and adoration toward God. But pietism is a movement.
A man by the name of Spaner, in Germany, a couple of hundred years ago, in the midst of a dead orthodoxy in the Lutheran church, began to proclaim the importance of having a warm living center at the heart of your faith and your church that involved regeneration, the new birth, sanctification, and a devotional walk with Christ in an effort to share the Gospel with others. That is a wonderful thing. We certainly stress that here. But like many movements, it was distorted by the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc., until today pietism means something quite different.
I’ve likened it to a hurricane with swirling winds going round and round. But it is not a hurricane unless there is a center. Until you can see the center on the map, they don’t even call it a hurricane. You’ve got to have that warm still center. After the roaring of the wind, suddenly all was still and warm. The stillness lasts for about ten or twelve minutes, and all of a sudden, whack, the full impact of the hurricane hit from the other side. That is what a hurricane is like.
Now, the liberal social action of the sixties was all swirling wind and no Gospel. So, it wasn’t Christian social action; it wasn’t Christian at all. It was simply socialism with a religious veneer. Pietism, instead of being a hurricane with a still center and moving winds around it is nothing but the still, quiet center. I could not tell you how many pietists there are among evangelicals today—even among Reformed evangelicals. I couldn’t tell you how many sermons I have heard that never once reach beyond the “still quiet center.” When a center like that passes by it changes nothing. So, if we’re going to be transformers of society, we need to be spiritual hurricanes, and that is what the great Reformers were. We need Gospel revival in America and the world.
Many Pastors preach about "love your neighbor", but not "love your God with all your heart, mind, souls and strength" or the full Gospel of Jesus Christ. You her the "pursuit of happiness", but not the "pursuit of holiness", which is what the Lord desires. They are great at making friends, but do not make disciples (students/followers) of Jesus Christ. How can the church (the body of Christ) get off the sideline of decline and get in the harvest game, implement the Cultural Mandate to engage this society, exposing the unfruitful "social gospel" and dead pagan secular humanism? To present the "true Gospel" of Jesus Christ that will lead people, not to socialism, but to the foot of the Cross and join the heavenly pursuit to restore and make America a godly nation again that focuses on holiness and righteous before the face of God?
In Christ, Brian
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