More on the Church and The Social Gospel

I'm really happy with the Sept./Oct. 2011 issue of Modern Reformation magazine as the theme is about all of this current social justice obsession in evangelical churches. A particular interesting article is by pastor Ken Jones, a black reformationist. I think he is the only one I've ever read (except perhaps for Fred Price) who isn't advocating the black church as an institution getting involved with black social problems. Like all of the other articles in this issue of the magazine, Jones advocates for churches to build up individuals through the sacraments and preaching of the Word so they then will be able to be equipped to go out and do the social justice thing. Once again, it's an example of evangelicals getting the cart before the horse instead of vice-versa. Jones and others are getting the horse in the right place--in front of the cart which is what is supposed to be happening. Doctrine is the horse and practice (praxis) is the cart. What happens when the cart is before the horse? The horse may become confused and try to go another way. The cart, meanwhile, may veer off the path into a ditch, carrying the poor horse with it and the horse breaking a leg. I think this is a good analogy of what's happening in many, if not most, of our churches today. But someday, church members, especially younger ones, will wake up and see that the church did very little to alleviate poverty and homelessness. And then they'll become discouraged, depressed and probably angry that the church stopped being the church and became something else; something just like every other secular "do-gooder" group. Here is a great quote from the article by Jones,

First of all, the idea of a church seeing one community or ethnic group as it's constituency is antithetical to the biblical concept of church.

I believe that this also applies to age and marital segregation (singles vs. marrieds). The church should oppose every type of segregation, and while there has been a lot of talk about racial segregation in churches, especially those with younger adult members, I rarely if ever hear about ethnic or age segregation from these very same people. Why is that I wonder?