The Radical Message of the Gospel

Yesterday I was reading along in Mark Noll's The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (my current church history read) and got stopped in my tracks by this paragraph:

"The movement of evangelicalism beyond the boundaries of British society had begun. As often in the evangelical story, the prompting of Continental pietists was critical. But even more vital was the evangelical understanding of the gospel as free -- that is, as broader, deeper and higher than the conventions of both British Christendom and Western civilization. Evangelicals in their early decades were not social radicals, yet the message that moved them to action was beginning to have radical effects."

Isn't this a wonderful truth to ponder? Sometimes evangelicals (and Christians of all traditions) can get carried away by their understandable enthusiasm for the past contributions of the church in the cause of social justice. That's good in its place: we should laud the example of saints like William Wilberforce and care deeply about the kinds of things and people that he and other like-minded Christians cared about. But we should also remember where his impetus came from, and why he was compelled to care and to act as he did.

It's the gospel that's truly radical, the gospel that sets people free, the gospel that speaks into people's lives and moves far ahead of any of us in its radical nature. It compels us to be far more radical than we'd ever possibly be on our own. When you look at the legacy of earlier evangelicalism, as it was emerging in the British Isles and North America in the 18th century, you see, for instance, that the evangelical churches' attitudes regarding race, and their work with the African community, is a mixed bag at best. The Wesleys preached the spiritual equality of all people before God. So did Whitefield, to a point (though he eventually accepted slavery and even owned slaves). The Moravians, always on the cutting edge of ministry and mission, didn't speak out directly against slavery, but their actions and their ministry amongst Africans in communities in the Virgin Islands, for example, spoke eloquent volumes about their understanding that all people were made in God's image and needed to hear the good news that alone could set them free. They were far ahead of many of the churches of their day (and many miles ahead of the Anglicans, whose culture-boundedness at this point in their history did not serve them well...has it ever?).

My point: as inspiring as the work of spiritual pioneers like Wesley and Whitefield is, they themselves sometimes struggled with the radical implications of the gospel. It was the radical message of the gospel itself that made them forge ahead, that shaped them outside of their comfort zones. This was true in all sorts of matters, I expect, not just racial matters. I often think about John Wesley, church-born and bred, beginning his ministry not thinking anyone should or could preach outside church walls. God literally moved him *out* -- outside those walls and into the fields where hungry, exhausted miners struggled with poverty and addiction. When Wesley got the place where he said "the world is my parish" it was huge. He'd realized that God was calling him to something much more vast than he could have ever imagined.

The early evangelicals weren't social radicals, but the gospel called them to places they never expected, and they began to see radical fruits because of their ministry. No surprise that a Wilberforce was growing up right behind the Wesleys, no surprise that Wilberforce himself was mentored in the ways of radical grace by a former (and now radically converted) captain of a slave ship. No surprise that the gospel began to have radical effects, because it is indeed "broader, deeper and higher" than any cultural conventions.

And what did all this mean? Well, in the context of the 18th century, the gospel message meant freedom for many people (as it still does today). But it also meant that seeds were planted that are still bearing fruit as we see the enormous and amazing growth of Christianity around the globe now, in the twenty-first century, in all sorts of communities and cultures. Noll calls "the beginning of an enduring Christian presence among African Americans..." "the one truly revolutionary development in evangelicalism" during this time period. We often focus on the ways that evangelical churchmen like the Wesleys sparked revival in the established churches of England (and other English-speaking parts of the world). What I've sometimes failed to grasp is the enormity of the rise of Christian faith among people who didn't need "revival" but who needed to hear the gospel for the first time, the rise of Christian faith "among black communities in the new world," among peoples who often lived as social outcasts and who had "no strong tradition of Christian faith, no stake in church establishments and no heritage of European civilization." This wasn't just revival, it was the evangelization of cultures who had never had the opportunity to hear the gospel before. And it was radical and huge.

God's work often is.