Is Being Gospel-Centered Enough?
Gospel-Filled Social Change (Part 1)
A social movement was born in the early 2000’s.
Reformed Theology boomed. Reformed theologians become popular. The Gospel Coalition was launched. Gospel-Centered Ministry was ready to win the world for Christ.
That movement died in the early 2020’s.
Across a wide range of social issues, the Gospel-Centered Movement failed to deliver effective biblical leadership:
In response to this, many have concluded that the Gospel and social issues are in mutually exclusive tension.
Some now say that we can be Gospel-Centered but not Gospel-Only.8 Others say that urgent social issues should delay our promotion of the Gospel.9 Finally, some have abandoned the Gospel altogether and converted to Roman Catholicism due to its perceived clarity on social issues.10
The Power of the Gospel
When we read Scripture however, the Gospel is not a hindrance to social reform, rather it is the power of salvation that reveals righteousness :
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
What if the Gospel-Centred movement failed, not because it prioritised the Gospel, but because it prioritised a truncated Gospel?
What if the postman cut your letter in half before delivering it?
A Truncated Gospel
The Bible knows that you can preach empty words.
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
While some erroneously argue from this passage that good works contribute to a right standing before God,11 the Bible does no such thing.12 Before the judgement seat of God, there is only one thing that can cover our sin and give us righteous standing: the perfect punishment Jesus took on our behalf, and the perfect life he lived on our behalf.13
James does not deny the Gospel here, rather he is teaching us how to distinguish between genuine faith and counterfeit faith.
What is the hallmark of a counterfeit faith? It empties the Gospel of specific moral content. It hermetically seals particular aspects of your life (works) from what God has said. It hides the righteousness of God from you, instead of revealing it.14
According to James 2:14-26, the true Gospel has full-orbed integrity. Genuine faith is not just Gospel-centered, it is Gospel-filled. A true believer carefully fills every part of his life with the Gospel. He lives it. He breathes it.15
A Trinitarian Gospel
What is a full-orbed Gospel? How can we avoid truncating the Gospel?
At the heart of Scripture is a God who is both one and many. He is perfect unity and perfect diversity. He is the very standard of integrity. A Gospel that has integrity must therefore reflect the Trinity.
John Frame points out that in Scripture, each person of the Trinity reveals particular aspects of God’s nature. The Father reveals God’s authority. The Son reveals God’s power. The Spirit reveals God’s presence.16 We see this for example in the baptism of Jesus,17 where the Father speaks authoritatively, the Son is powerfully active in the world and the Spirit is existentially present.18
A life that is filled by the Trinitarian Gospel will be:
Gospel-Centered: The Gospel is our authoritative standard and focus.
Gospel-Shaped: The Gospel powerfully controls every material aspect of our lives.
Gospel-Driven: Our hearts are existentially alive to and motivated by the Gospel.
Just like the Trinity, if you try to remove any one of these aspects, you will not end up with a smaller Gospel, you will end up with a false Gospel.
Gospel-Filled Social Change
The Gospel-Centered Movement clearly taught us the core (authority) of the Gospel. It also applied the presence of the Gospel to our very hearts (Hallelujah!). Yet, I believe it failed to sufficiently shape us by the power of Gospel. It muzzled the specific moral content of God’s message.
Some people reacted to this failure by de-emphasising the Gospel, side-lining the Gospel or abandoning the Gospel. But the solution lies very much in the opposite direction.
We do not need less of the Gospel, but more of it. We need Gospel-filled lives, where every thought, deed and word is shaped by, driven to and focussed on the glorious victory of Jesus Christ over death and sin on the Cross.
Towards that end, I will write a series of articles on Gospel-Filled Social Change. In them, I will apply a Gospel-Shaped paradigm to the main social issues of our time. By the mercy of God, may these articles display the power and righteousness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thoughtful Reformed
As an example, David Platt and Ligon Duncan validated the concept of ‘racial blindness‘ (an artefact of Crititical Race Theory) at a national convention.
Ray Ortlund endorsed the most left-wing presidential candidate in United States history while the Gospel Coalition has not once warned Christians about the Marxist economic policies promoted by the Democratic Party.
When Beth Moore complained that being a woman inhibited her from being a fully fledged and respected public Bible teacher, the Gospel Coalition published an apology to her. Within 3 years, Beth Moore became a figurehead of feminism in the evangelical movement.
In the year 2020, for the first time since the 3rd century, Western governments forcibly closed church buildings across their lands. John MacArthur’s church was one of the only Gospel-Centered churches that defied this authoritarianism. Yet he was criticised by fellow Gospel-Centered leaders for doing so.
While the United States experienced unprecedented, accelerating illegal migration across its southern border, the Gospel Coalition hosted a dialogue where the mere enforcing of immigration law was up for debate.
The Gospel Coalition Australia promoted Taylor Swift’s music as containing a Gospel message while she was singing ‘F*** THE PATRIARCHY’ in her recorded music and at live concerts.
At the moment, the Gospel Coalition has published 100 times more articles on pornography than on contraception.
See this article as an example.
In a recent interview where Joel Webbon (a self-identified Reformed Christian) offers no clear Gospel presentation to Nick Fuentes (a Roman Catholic) while saying that discussing such difference ‘is not the battle today.’
For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2370 states that all forms of contraception are ‘intrinsically evil’.
See for example this article on a Roman Catholic apologetics website.
‘For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.’ (Romans 3:28)
‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ (2 Corinthians 5:21)
See Romans 1:17 above.
Notice the all-ecompassing nature of Paul’s words here: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.‘ (Galatians 2:20b-c).
Note that each person of the Trinity is fully God, so the Father also reveals God’s power, and the Son also reveals God’s authority, etc… However, in Scripture each of these is more strongly associated with a specific person of the Trinity.
For full Scriptural proofs, please read What Is Tri-Perspectivalism? by John Frame.