It has been a long argument in Evangelical circles about how to relate “spiritual” ministries and “social” ministries.

For centuries the two seemed to have a relatively peaceful (even if, perhaps, unexamined) coexistence. The church is supposed to deal with the spiritual needs of its community, AS WELL AS the physical, relational, and often economic needs. There were many problems over the centuries for sure, but it seems like it was simply understood that the church cannot just be the distributor of sacrament and homilies. It must be intertwined with the broader human and social fabric of a community.

One of the problems comes exactly from the broadness of the mandate of the church. If the church has a role in so many aspects of society, there is the potential of having a great deal of power or control over society. To some, this may seem like a wonderful thing— a theocracy or sorts. However, in practice, a theocracy is nothing of the sort. It is power located in the hands of a few religious, and very human, leaders— a “hierocracy.” Such power over spiritual and social affairs pretty inevitably to corruption. In religion, much like in politics in general, it is often the people who seek power who are least to be trusted with that power. This has not changed over time because people haven’t really changed.

Later on, as we move into 18th and 19th centuries, we see the growth of secular governments, such as the United States and France, as well as “free churches”— religious bodies that reject the concept of the State Church (or the Church-State)— new concerns arose. Social and Spiritual care were both supported but now is a question of what are the boundaries of church ministry. Things are somewhat easier to define where there are no boundaries. But well-defined boundaries lead to healthy relationships. While I think this is a good thing, as soon as one says that there is an acceptance that some boundaries are good… one must wonder what things are the under the purview of the church and what is not. For example, if being a member of the church and being a member of the state are no longer equivalent, baptismal records can no longer be seen as the only documentation for birth in a government’s jurisdiction. The church, likewise, cannot be the only place for documenting marriages. And as social welfare becomes identified as a role of the civil government, where does the church fit into this new landscape?

With the growth of the Social Gospel Movement in the early 20th century, and Hocking’s “Laymen’s Report” in 1925, there was a move with churches both locally and missionally to address this issue. At its most extreme, the result is like the following:

Christian ministry is essentially social ministry. There are some things that might be considered spiritual ministry, but they are ill-defined and still defined mostly within the context of serving God through social work. Essentially, spiritual ministry is implicit to doing explicit social ministry.

There was a fundamentalist revolt against this. It took some different forms. One form is a Spiritualist perspective. In it, REAL ministry is spiritual ministry. Social ministry something else… most commonly a distraction. I recall a book I read on churchplanting movements (CPM) where the question of social ministry was brought up. The writers recommended against doing social ministry since it would “slow down” church planting. Personally, I see NOTHING in the Bible to suggest that speed is a command of God, or even seen as a virtue. However, one of the keys for CPM is Rapid Seed Sowing, so if one thinks that CPM is a good thing, perhaps one could argue that social ministry is bad. Maybe. We can explore that more later.

Perhaps a more common attitude is that Social ministry is implicit in Spiritual ministry. I don’t have the quote in front of me, but I recall Billy Graham expressing the belief that the way to transform society and cure social evils is spiritual transformation. If enough people pray to receive Christ, social problems will start to fade away. I have heard others defend this— often with anecdotes. Zaccheus was spiritually transformed and immediately wanted to act in an economically benevolent way, righting matters of social injustice. That is not a very good case however, since Jesus regularly modeled social ministry, and preached social justice (along with his more explicitly spiritual message regarding the Kingdom of God).

However, generally, I don’t think this works all that often. Part of the problem is that you reap what you plant. If you are an evangelist or church planter who does not express concern about social or economic injustice, or physical, relational, or psychoemotional health of those around him, he is likely to develop Christians who do not express that concern. If Christians are taught that things don’t matter as to what is happening around, because Jesus is returning ‘any day’ and will fix everything that is wrong, people are going to start believing that, even if the Bible makes it clear that we are to care about those exact concerns. I have a friend who is a Bible study leader. He does a good job in that role. But often it gets funny. When someone in the group mentions something about how it is good to do good things for others, he was almost invariably go into a mini-sermon on how we are saved by faith and not by works. Of course, the comment had nothing to do about salvation. My friend, however, is so focused on the spiritual aspect (conversion to Christ) that anything that is seen as a lesser concern is minimized, nearly out of existence.

This perspective could be seen in the following figure:

Christian ministry is essentially spiritual. However, in response to spiritual transformation it is hoped that social evils will, at least to some extent, be addressed.

This is enough for now. Part Two will continue this reflection.