DC Baptist Pastor: Try Applying Your Theology to Injustice

[Jerome]

Ferguson & Bourgeois Christianity

I’m talking about the “evangelicalism” of “Bible-believing Christians,” of “gospel-centered people,” of “conservative” movements that pride themselves on not being “those liberals.”

There’s not yet been anything that looks like a groundswell of evangelical call for action, for theology applied to injustice. It’s possible (even likely) that I’ve missed a call for action from my colleagues and peers in the evangelical world. But I don’t think I’ve missed our most influential leaders with the widest reach. They’ve been silent en masse. Today I think we need to be pushed a couple steps ahead.

Otherwise, orthodox evangelicalism is dead. It’s dead to oppressed folks in our back yards who need to hear the word of God spoken into their situation with all the prophetic unction our Lord would give. It’s dead to grieving parents required to have closed casket funerals for their children because racist systems and people so disfigure the body it can’t be shown. Orthodox evangelicalism is dead to the marginalized because it’s so allergic to the margins. It wants its mainstream, its tree-lined streets of cultural acceptance, its reserve and respectability. So it’s dead.

 

[Yeshua1]

Ferguson & Bourgeois Christianity

Rome was treated the Christians MUCH worse then America has been dealing with her minorities, and where did jesus and His Apostles address that solcial injustice situation?

 

[OldRegular]

Ferguson & Bourgeois Christianity

I am sure the protestors in Ferguson would give this man a warm welcome, especially if he is white!

 

[Revmitchell]

INjustice is done to everyone equally and there is no need to address it based on race. We need to be sharing the gospel with everyone. The so called social insjustice agenda is a cover to spread socialism.

 

[Jerome]

Socialism? What in the world?

This is Mark Dever's new assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (SBC), which has been "Aways doctrinally conservative", according to its website.

 

[ktn4eg]

In the NT, you'll find what was (for its time) probably the most "radical" program of social reform of all.

Granted, what most of us 21st century westerners would call social reform was not the primary goal of NT Christianity---that of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order that people could learn of the only way of eternal salvation by trusting in His death, burial, and resurrection, and receiving His salvation by grace through faith---but, as a result of becoming a blood-bought child of God, a person would therefore have a desire to conform his/her life such that he/she would want to please Christ in every aspect of life.

This would, of course, include things that we today tend to compartmentalize into the "spiritual realm," but it would also include a desire to uplift his/her fellow man in many other aspects of day-to-day life.

Both the OT and the NT tell us to love our fellowman by engaging in acts of kindness and compassion above and beyond what society expects, such as going the proverbial "second mile."

In the story of the Good Samaritan, Christ Himself struck at the very core of racial biases of His day by making the person who most every Jew of that day hated--the Samaritan--the "good guy" of this story, and thereby, putting the self-righteous priest and Levite (who should have been the more compassionate folks to the injured man) in a comparatively bad light.

The Apostle Paul penned the letter to Philemon to receive Philemon's run-away slave Onesimus (who had now become a Christian), "Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved....in the Lord," (v. 16).

While the text doesn't specifically tell Philemon to free Onesimus, many believe that doing so was what Paul meant in verse 21.

The early Christians suffered much when they chose to openly identify with Christ, even to the point of death of not only themselves, but also quite often of that of their families, but that awful fate did little to stop them from proclaiming Jesus Christ as the one and only way to be saved from eternal damnation.

They face severe persecution not only from the "higher ups" in Judaism of their times, but also from Roman governmental officials. Yet, the apostles told these Christians to pray for the very ones who sought to do them harm.

As a consequence, even these people who were at one time dead set against these Christians often times wound up becoming Christians themselves---and many faced the same horrible fate as they did.

My point is this: If we, as both individual Christians and corporately as a spiritual body (which is what we're supposed to be), would really take to heart what God's Word tells to do, I believe that we'd see much less injustice in this world than what we're now experiencing.

 

[OldRegular]

My point is this: If we, as both individual Christians and corporately as a spiritual body (which is what we're supposed to be), would really take to heart what God's Word tells to do, I believe that we'd see much less injustice in this world than what we're now experiencing.

You make a very interesting observation in your final statement which I quote,

Some years ago while teaching the Book of Revelation in an Adult SS Class I came across an interesting comment by Dr. Ray Frank Robbins former professor at the New Orleans Seminary published in Revelation, Three Viewpoints which I believe goes to the heart of what you are saying. I preface Dr. Robbins remarks by some of my own. The passage under discussion is Revelation 12:10-17.

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For the Church the wilderness is the world. Yet the wilderness is a place of safety for the Church. How can the ungodly world provide safety for the Church? [Keep in mind that we are discussing the Church, not the individual believer.] As long as local churches [whose true believers constitute the Church] are separate from the world they are a witness of the salvation of God to the unbelieving world. Individual Christians may perish but God will add daily to the Church those who are being saved out of the wilderness. Neither Satan nor the gates of hell will prevail against the Church [Matthew 16:18] and the Lord Jesus Christ will find faith when He returns [Luke 18:8]. Robbins, page 203, presents an interesting analysis of the consequence of this witness and its role in the preservation of the Church, as follows:

So when the dragon was thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman, that is, the church. But the church is now protected. She was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness. The wilderness now is the place of protection, the place on the way to, but not yet in, where she is to be nourished for time and times and half a time. What is that? It is forty-two months or three and a half years. This is the time between the first coming and the Second Coming of our Lord. In the wilderness, that is in the world now, on the way to, but not yet complete, the serpent poured out water like a river after the woman. Satan is trying to destroy her, but the earth swallows up the river. This is a beautiful figure which seems to indicate that the efforts of Satan to destroy the church becomes a way of protecting the church. The early Christians, in fact, every member of the church was at one time a member of the world. As one church father said, the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church. So it seems here that in the world as Satan tries to destroy through his agents, through evil people, these evil people become saved. They actually protect and become the church. There is a strange condition in which it seems that the thing that is trying to destroy the church actually saves the church, because every member of the church was at one time hostile to and antagonistic to the church. So this river that the dragon tries to drown the church with sinks down and protects the church. But the earth came to the help of the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which poured, out of his mouth. The male child was saved and now the church is being protected.

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Sadly, however, recent history shows not that the Church is going into the world but that the world has entered the doors of the church, enthusiastically welcomed by some denominational leaders and members. Bro. Curtis addresses this problem in the thread How To Shrink Your Church In One Easy Step and the accompanying link!