Chuck Huckaby is pastor of St. Andrews Church in Lawrenceburg, TN. On the founder of the "Social Gospel" - Walter Rauschenbusch.
He had lost confidence in the Word and in the Resurrection of Christ.
He saw people virtually enslaved, living in terrible conditions. He was absolutely right to be repulsed by these things. But he had really gutted the Faith.
The history of the church is social ministry and social transformation, but it always follows the preaching of Christ.
The Social Gospel erred, not because it had compassion on the poor...it erred because it rejected the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
Can you be a congregation that doesn't take social issues seriously?
There are a lot of congregations that don't...But is that a relevant congregation? I don't think so.
What can we do to get our congregations excited about evangelism and compassionate ministry.
These things have to be modeled by the pastor.
If the pastor is not someone who's doing both, the congregation is not going to do both.
"Let the God who answers by orphanages, let him be Lord." - Spurgeon
We need to look at people like Spurgeon, Wesley, Calvin and see things they did. How they combined the gospel of Christ with the things they did in their ministries.
Why do we miss social responsibility in our local churches?
I don't know.
I grew up in an Evangelical Baptist home. My mother ran a program..for alcoholics in the VA system.
I remember hearing the gospel. I also remember hearing this fear of liberalism, if someone was telling me those verses (concerning the poor), we feared we might lose our faith.
I don't think the younger generation has that fear. I think this generation is saying, don't you see those verses, what's going on?
I think based on the experiences of some in our generation, that we're going, "Oh, that's not what we're used to."
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