Speaking at a Retreat near Lake Louise, Harry Antonides of the Christian Labor Association of Canada gave five hours of lectures on the roots and developments of the Social Gospel and its contemporary manifestation in Canada. The material helped one to understand the history of the church in Canada and the current over-emphasis on social-political-economic questions among many churches, not only the so-called mainline churches, but also the Christian Reformed Church (e.g., in the direction of the Canadian Council of the CRCs, the Committee for Justice and Liberty and also the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee—the later partly due to synod’s own weakness in this regard). We learned things that we had never been taught at college or seminary, and it gave us new perspective and vision.
He traced the roots of the social gospel from Germany and England to the U.S. and Canada and summarized the general characteristics of that movement:
Man and his needs rather than God and His honor are in the center of attention.
Love for the neighbor (the second commandment) is made equal to or takes the place of love to God (the fir st commandment).
God’s immanence (His is part of nature and history) rather than his transcendence is stressed.
There is a very shallow concept of sin, (Man is basically good and sin is basically selfishness) and an emasculated doctrine of grace.
Evil is not so much a matter of origin (the fall) or corruption of man’s heart, but more a matter of the environment and structures of society.
What a man does is far more important than what he believes. (Orthopraxis has replaced orthodoxy.)
The kingdom of God is identified with the (evolutionary) idea of a rational, social order based on “the social teachings of Jesus” (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount wrongly interpreted). Bringing about this utopian “kingdom of God” will be the crowning achievement of the social gospel movement—based on the “golden rule.”
In the name of “relevance” the cardinal doctrines of Christianity are negated or denied and salvation is seen as changing the evil (social-economic–political) structures of society.
The church’s creeds are minimized; it is not what the church is (her nature) and believes that are important, but what she does (what she is good for).
The idea of the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man.
Religion was made subservient to political and economic concerns.
Christianity was reduced mainly to ethical concerns—an ethicized view of religion, a new kind of moralism.
A tendency toward a socialist-Marxist critique of society. “Human happiness” was made the ultimate end of religion.
There was a merger between Christianity and humanism, in which the Bible was seen as basically just another human book.
The lectures constitute d a thorough analysis and critique of the Social Gospel and what the speaker called “modern activist Christianity.” When the church allows the gospel to be hollowed out for the sake of “relevance,” it loses its heart and aids secularism instead of combating it. It becomes part of the problem rather than bringing a solution. The speaker urged us, as a Reformed church, not to sell our birthright but rather to clarify and deepen our own position, for only then can we become part of the solution. Otherwise we contribute to our own irrelevance, and we aid in the secularization process.
In this connection he considered it important to maintain the church institute/organism distinction, and stressed the limited task of the instituted church. It must stick to upholding and proclaiming the gospel for all of life, but must not try to spell out all kinds of socio-economic programs or join all kinds of “task forces” and social agencies. Not only is that outside the competency of the instituted church, but itis not her task.In this regard Antonides expressed his conviction that the Council of CRCs in Canada has no business getting involved in all kinds of social agencies, and that what it does there is all wrong. The direction of the Committee for Justice and Liberty also came in for some criticism—rightly so, I believe. The speaker advised us to remember the incompleteness of the Kingdom of God here on earth. We will not bring about the Kingdom by our own efforts. God will bring about that consummation when Jesus returns. Remembering this will keep us from “triumphalism.” In contrast with the suggestion that the church should become involved with Christian organizations and dismiss the “business of sphere sovereignty” as a “Dutch import,” he stressed the vital importance of maintaining this biblical distinction of spheres. He urged that we guard the confessional integrity of the CRC.
Jelle Tuininga is the pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.