Since the end of the nineteenth century in American churches, the pendulum has swung back and forth between saving souls (View A) and transforming culture (View B). As different as these approaches appear to be, both succumb to precisely the same error: the confusion of law and gospel. View A is worried about confusing evangelism with politics, social engagement, and culture. View B proclaims a "bigger gospel": the salvation of souls and bodies, of individual believers and the whole creation. In this election year, here's the correction I recommend for both approaches.
First, we need to distinguish between the law and the gospel without separating them. By definition, a law is a command and gospel means "good news." Legalism collapses the gospel into the law, and antinomianism collapses the law into the gospel. Both are dangerous, and both of these groups make different mistakes when it comes to the gospel and the transformation of the world.
Group A reduces the gospel to the salvation of individual souls. The resurrection of the body, however, is hardly good news if the point is merely to save souls. The gospel changes our expectations, our sense of meaning and purpose, and the motives that drive our lives. Group B fails to realize that the salvation Christ has won is "already" and "not yet." In between Christ's two comings is an era of bringing the gospel to all nations before the final judgment. It's also an era of loving our neighbors, serving alongside Christians and non-Christians in various callings.
Finally, just as we have to distinguish between law and gospel without separating them, so we must distinguish the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:36-40) from the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20). In the Great Commandment, Jesus says to love "the Lord your God" and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (see Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5). This commandment is God's mission plan for human society, founded in creation. In the Great Commission, Jesus says to his disciples to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." This is God's mission plan for the new humanity in Christ.
Some churches confuse these mandates, as if the Great Commission calls the church to transform culture. Others separate them, as if our high calling in Christ had no connection with responsible stewardship and citizenship in the world. The way around these false alternatives is to recognize that we are called by God to love and serve our neighbors. We are also called to witness to them about Jesus Christ.
I'm convinced that if more Christians had these categories’distinctions without separation’in mind when they thought about crucial public issues, especially during general election cycles, there would be a far deeper Christian witness to a world that has become understandably cynical about the so-called intersection of faith and culture.
