What does an organization do when the Biblical signs of oneness with the Lord are not part of its spiritual life? One of three options are normally utilized: 1) Admit to being wrong, repent, embrace God and obey His Word, 2) become more religious by staying the course more zealously, 3) switch gospels. This posting addresses option #3 which involves changing church emphasis from traditional religion to Satan’s latest feel-good offering–the “Social Gospel.”

What has come to be known as the “Social Gospel” means exactly what it says. The term “social” refers to people in general and human relationships in particular. In other words, the Social Gospel refers to religious churchman’s relationship with the unchurched society in which he lives. The first question asked by those who know and serve God relative to the S.G. is: Why have so many religious organizations abandoned God’s commands relative to daily life in favor of doing community service? Because the Biblical Lord is not part of their religious life. One who spends money he does not have must use counterfeit currency; one who shares a God he does not have must use a counterfeit god. In both cases the product is bogus.

When those in America’s space program were trying to send men to the moon they were reportedly told: “If you can’t make it, fake it.” Unbeknownst to both the secular and religious worlds, that had been the Counterfeit Church’s unspoken mantra for some 1700 years. Religious man does not have the “right stuff” to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (God’s true church established in 31 A.D.), so he fakes it by substituting a counterfeit church system that, like the fig tree with leaves but no fruit (Mat. 11:13,20,21), the church is all show and no go, all form and no function, all seduction and no production. In order to maintain her standing in the global religious community she creates another “gospel,” one she can obey and put forth without having to do what God commands in His Word. Being already “saved,” why go to the trouble of obeying God? Righteous living being much too much trouble, she would prove her oneness with God through community service.  To legitimize her new focus she follows the example established by Satan when tempting Jesus following His 40 day fast–she quotes Scripture (Mat. 4:1-11). And like Jesus, His ministers speak Truth to power by placing the Scriptures in their proper context. Satan departed after being corrected. His church doubles down, digs in her religious heels and stays the course. Let us now enter into a study of the Social Gospel in order to define it and compare it to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The term “Social Gospel” is used to describe the religiously intellectual movement that burst onto the world scene in the early 1900’s. Finding themselves without the Lord and not willing to do what was necessary to become one with Him (obey His Word), church people by the millions began looking for a way to apply Biblical principles to areas of social life that would make them feel righteous without having to be righteous. Instead of being the “light of the world” that would draw the world to her, she decided to take her false light to the world around her–to substitute doing for being while telling herself that by doing she was in fact being. These well-meaning but misguided parishioners began to serve the surrounding community by providing food, clothing, etc. to the needy.  Eventually, many of her denominations began trying to exert influence on the national and international level by engaging in what became known as “Revolution Theology.” Man’s new gospel emphasized his ministry rather than God’s ministry. Physical acts of feeding the physically hungry physical food replaced the speaking of God’s Words that would feed the spiritually hungry.  To be continued. L.J.