Save Souls or Feed the Poor?

Saturday September 29, 2007

No More Self-Satisfied Christians

By Bill Hybels

I post my final response for this exchange with a tinge of sadness. I have never met Paul, but I find him to be a kindred spirit—albeit a much smarter and more well-read one.

His recent point about sanctifying society while we attempt to sanctify ourselves reminds me of a personal, sobering realization I made seven years ago. At the time, I was reading a book on racial reconciliation and found myself feeling pretty self-satisfied: I harbored no ill will toward anyone of color; I had scores of friendships spanning all sorts of racial and ethnic divides; and I encouraged everyone in my sphere of influence to be the very first person in every social setting to reach out a hand of fellowship and friendship to those of a different race or ethnicity.

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Filed Under: Bill Hybels, Jesus, Paul Raushenbush, Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch

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Tuesday September 25, 2007

'The Kingdom Is Always But Coming'

This has been a remarkably encouraging conversation. I thank Rev. Hybels for his generosity of spirit and enlightening responses.

My final question for Rev. Hybels has to do with how sin and redemption function within our social lives. Sin is generally understood on an individual level--it can be described as our own will and life being in discord with God’s will for our lives. Thus Christians spend much of our time raising our awareness of sin, repenting of it, experiencing the forgiveness that is transmitted through Jesus Christ, accepting God’s will for our lives, and hopefully trying to transform the way we live to reflect God’s will.

The social gospel has that vision on the macro level. It means that when we pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, we don’t just mean in our individual lives but also within our society and in the world at large. That means actively identifying sin in the way the world is functioning, dedicating ourselves to corporately repenting of that sin, and working to transform the world into accordance with God’s will.

This gets tricky because everyone has an idea of what God’s will is for the world. For some Christians, this means trying to convince everyone to believe in what they believe, or engaging in activism to legislate private morality.

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Filed Under: Bill Hybels, Christians, Jesus, Paul Raushenbush, Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch

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Tuesday September 18, 2007

Bridge Builders, Not Bible Beaters

By Bill Hybels

I sincerely wish that I could have met Pastor Walter Rauschenbusch when he was alive. He sounds like someone who walked the talk, catalyzing whatever action was necessary to meet the holistic needs of those he served. That’s the kind of legacy a guy like me dreams of.

I read Paul’s response and was not at all surprised that he wonders if Willow Creek is an exception within evangelicalism. Many of the larger evangelical churches seen on television are eerily similar to the stereotype he laments. It’s a reality that bothers me, too.

Often, when I’m in a social setting and people learn that I am an evangelical pastor of a large church, the jokes begin: "So, who are you mad at?" Or, "Who are you guys bashing these days?"

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Filed Under: Bill Hybels, Paul Raushenbush, Social Gospel

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Friday September 14, 2007

Do Evangelicals Practice What They Preach?

By Paul Raushenbush

It is encouraging to read Pastor Hybels’ post. We appear to agree that the Gospel encompasses both a concern for the soul and for transforming the material existence of the poor. I became eager to attend his church when I read his words that: “in virtually every case, when I see a life get transformed by the atoning work of Christ, it is not long before that new believer sees the plight of the poor…and (has) an intense desire to do whatever is necessary in the name of Christ to eradicate injustice, relieve oppression, and alleviate suffering of any kind.”

I have to say that I am surprised by our convergence and by this claim. I hope that Pastor Hybels is willing to say more about what form this effort takes in his own church and in evangelical churches across the country, because his description of his church is so different from my perception of evangelicalism in America today. Evangelicals seem to be more concerned with proselytizing and campaigning on social issues such as homosexuality than organizing themselves to meet social needs of the poor. Or is that just my ignorance or prejudice? I continue to associate many of the large evangelical churches more with prosperity preaching (which I consider a modern heresy) than with sustained efforts to relieve oppression and alleviate suffering. Maybe in some minds, prosperity preaching is a version of relieving oppression.

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Filed Under: Bill Hybels, Paul Raushenbush, Social Gospel

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Tuesday September 11, 2007

Offer Both Salvation and Sustenance

By Bill Hybels

Pastor Raushenbush was right in predicting that he and I would feel essentially the same way on the Sandwich/Jesus issue. Stretching the metaphor a bit, I would add that the acid test for whether a person has indeed eaten the "Jesus" sandwich is whether or not he or she is then motivated to spend every day until the dying day offering both sandwiches—salvation and sustenance—to as many hungry people as possible.

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Filed Under: Bill Hybels, Paul Raushenbush, Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch

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Tuesday September 11, 2007

The 'Jesus vs. Sandwich' Debate

By Paul Raushenbush

"Anyone can give a hungry person a sandwich. We have to give them Jesus." This statement by a conservative evangelical got me thinking of this online conversation with Rev. Hybels as the "Jesus vs. Sandwich" debate. I shouldn’t speak for Rev. Hybels, but my guess is that this simple dichotomy won’t work for either of us. That said, framing the debate as "Jesus vs. Sandwich" does raise the question of the primary message of Christianity. Was Jesus’ mission on earth to save individual souls for a future eternal life in heaven or to redeem and transform human lives here and now? To put this in practical terms, if it’s 9 am on Saturday and you have three free hours before lunch to be a good Christian, how should you best spend your time: Talking to people about salvation through Jesus in response to John 3:16, or helping to change society in response to Luke 4:18?

My great-grandfather, Walter Rauschenbusch, is something of a lightning rod for this debate. He was the most famous proponent of a school of Christian thought often called the "social gospel," whose mission was to use the power of the church to reform society to meet the needs of the poor. Because I was raised and have served in mainline churches that essentially welcomed Rauschenbusch’s social gospel ideas one hundred years ago, I have largely received admiring comments from pastors or theologians who recognize the Rauschenbusch name (although it was later shortened to lose the 'c's, apparently in an effort to make the name more American). They often tell me how important my great-grandfather’s work was for them in their own faith journey. We hear echoes of this in a new edition of his 1907 book, now titled Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century. In an essay accompanying the reissued book, Jim Wallis (founder of Sojourners) writes: “As a young evangelical, I was hungry for a Christian social ethic that focused on the poor, on social and racial equality, and on peace. Walter Rauschenbusch was a breath of fresh air.”

What I did not hear growing up were the equally passionate denunciations of Rauschenbusch. I later learned, however, that many Christians feel my great-grandfather’s teachings corrupted the Gospel by focusing on improving society rather than saving souls. Christian author Brian McLaren recently wrote to me, "Like a lot of people from evangelical backgrounds, in my childhood and youth I was taught that the ‘social gospel’ was nothing but evil. I heard it a thousand times in sermons."

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Filed Under: Bill Hybels, Paul Raushenbush, Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch

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Friday September 7, 2007

Bio: Paul Raushenbush

The Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the Associate Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel at Princeton University and former editor at Beliefnet. He recently edited the 100th anniversary edition of Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century, written by his great-grandfather Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch was a major proponent of the social gospel, a Christian philosophy which inspired a century of social activism on behalf of the poor aimed at transforming society to reflect God's will on earth as it is in heaven.

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Friday September 7, 2007

Bio: Bill Hybels

Bill Hybels is the founding and senior pastor of the 20,000-member Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill.

He is the best-selling author of more than twenty books, including Holy Discontent, The Volunteer Revolution, and Becoming a Contagious Christian.

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