Gospel Additions

by Gary Corwin

More” is not always better. Neither is “new.” And nowhere is this more true than with regard to the gospel.

More” is not always better. Neither is “new.” And nowhere is this more true than with regard to the gospel.

The “other” gospels Paul warns about in Galatians 1:6-9 can be as devious as they are dangerous. They may be something entirely new and different, but sometimes they are simply the result of an addition. Either way a false gospel results and both kinds of error make it more difficult for nonbelievers to embrace the message of Christ. In the first case because they never really hear it, and in the second case because they never hear it with clarity. The price, either way, is too high.

And this high cost is exactly what we have been paying in a number of spheres for far too long. Three that stand out for their significant impact on the missions enterprise are economics, cultural values and issues of war and peace. It is interesting to note how evangelicals have tended to go off the deep end at both ends of the spectrum on the defining issues in each sphere.

In economics, for example, we have both an evangelical Christian left and an evangelical Christian right. The former seeks to find solutions to societal and global inequalities by arguing for governmental or collective Christian responses. They tend to be strong on exposing need, but weak on offering real solutions.

The latter, by contrast, sees the invisible hand of the market as the all-in-one cure for all economic needs both foreign and domestic. Strong on recognizing the incredible economic engine unleashed by allowing free people to pursue their own ends, they tend to forget how essential the salt and light of Christian conscience is to curbing the abusive effects of greed and avarice.

Unfortunately, the offsetting strengths of each emphasis tend to get lost as believers divide themselves and settle into their economic ideology of choice, generally assuming that their own understanding is the true “Christian” one. As a result, economic truth is lost, and far worse, the gospel is truncated in the eyes of many unbelievers as little more than a philosophical underpinning to a particular economic theory. This is an especially unfortunate outcome in these days when Christian energy and leadership is shifting from the nations of the rich West to those of the much poorer South. But economics is not the only place this happens.

This problem in connection with the sphere of cultural values is as old as the Christian mission itself and has long been the primary challenge addressed by missiology. The gospel is transcultural and, as Professor Lamin Saneh of Yale would add, translatable into a unique but connected manifestation in each culture in the grand global mosaic of cultures. Each culture is fully capable of embracing and showing forth the glory of the gospel in its own particular fashion, and each is equally under the judgment of a righteous God for its own rebellious ways. Our ethnocentric tendencies, however, have often caused us (even missionaries) to lose sight of this truth. We so easily equate true Christianity with our own cultural manifestations of it.

Fortunately, the sheer force of Christian energy and strength issuing forth from the nations of the South may finally be putting this especially- Western shortcoming to rest. Some among us assume this. Others are less sure. Time will tell whether those from the South repeat the error or not, or if globalization will make the question a moot one.

It may be that globalization will be so successful in its homogenization of the world (a questionable premise) that the Church and its churches will be the last bastions of cultural preservation. In any case, Revelation 7 and other passages make clear that cultures will endure and will know the saving touch of the gospel. Fortunately, ethnocentrism knows no such assured longevity.

Issues of war and peace loom large as I write, and the world will no doubt have a different look by the time you read this. The escalating drumbeats of war, however, have provided a stark reminder of how differently faithful followers of Christ can see such issues. It has always been so, I think, as the new Civil War film, Gods and Generals so eloquently testifies. To assess the cases made by Christian pacifists and “just war” proponents requires more than space allows here, though the former seem increasingly militant in their identification of pacifism with the gospel, and the latter seem too often to equate “just” with whatever best serves their country’s interests. Neither in my view is true to the gospel, and both err gravely by leaving the impression that a particular understanding on these matters must be added to it.

The problem is not with Christians holding well-reasoned convictions with regard to such important matters. The problem arises when the lines of demarcation between revealed gospel and reasoned opinion on secondary but important matters become so blurred as to leave a watching world unsure about the difference. May God preserve us and his gospel from the follies of such arrogant and self-destructive behavior.

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Gary Corwin is associate editor of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly and a special representative with SIM in Charlotte, N.C.

EMQ, Vol 39, No. 3, pp. 280-281. Copyright © 2003 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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