The Dangers of Moralizing and The Social Gospel of the Left and Right

By Brannon S. Howse

Living a life of good works is not going to keep anyone from hell.

Attempting to legislate a city, state, or nation into righteousness is a wasted effort that will yield no eternal rewards. That doesn't mean we should do away with laws against murder, rape, stealing, and fraud. Romans 13 tells us that the purpose of government is to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. God created civil government for the purpose of maintaining a stable and just society so the other two institutions God created-the family and the Church-could go about their respective biblical mandates. Cities, states, and nations need laws. Some Christians have, and I pray will continue to have, a godly impact in government as individuals. But collectively, the Church needs to realize how foolish it is to spend so much time and money trying to force our biblical values onto an unsaved culture.

The way to produce a change in any culture is to preach the Gospel. It is only as individuals place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior that people are changed, families are changed, values are changed, and thus communities and cultures are changed. You cannot change a culture simply by fighting the symptoms of a depraved and sinful culture. A culture reflects the values embraced by the people living in a city, state, or nation, and until you change an individual's values, you will not change a culture with legislation or moralizing. A person's actions are based on his or her values, those values are based on the person's worldview, and that worldview consists of his or her theology, philosophy, ethics, etc.

The unsaved humanist is not going to change his or her values until the worldview based on a theology that denies the God of the Bible is changed. That means the goal of the New Apostolic Reformation and some of today's New Religious Right to legislate "kingdom values" through the seven mountain mandate, as they  call it, is a waste of time and money. Preaching a biblical Gospel, on the other hand, is never a waste of time and money.

I believe many of the NAR and New Religious Right members fail to preach the Gospel simply because they themselves are not saved. Many do not dare preach a biblical Gospel because they want to work with all the world's religions to establish their own version of the Kingdom of God on earth, and it is hard to get invited to speak at Mormon and Catholic conferences if you insist on preaching the Gospel of Christ.

This idea that they can establish the Kingdom of God on earth reeks of arrogance. This belief is called dominion theology. This belief system also reeks of a power grab-that "we're gonna take control, gonna be in power, we're gonna tell 'em how to run the world." It reeks of a humanism that is really believes it can control God, that God is dependent on them in order for Christ to return. This might be shocking except that the NAR has some strong New Age, cosmic humanist ideals.

The seven mountain mandate is eerily similar to the goals laid out by occultist Alice Bailey. Bailey claimed that her personal demon, the Tibetan, was a member of a group of Ascended Masters which "each have a special contribution to make towards human progress in one of the seven major fields of world work: political, religious, educational, scientific, philosophical, psychological or economic."[1] Notice the similarity between those seven fields and the seven mountains of "religion, family, business, arts & entertainment, government, education, and media" pushed by many members the New Apostolic Reformation and New Religious Right.

Many within the NAR and New Religious Right seem more interested in being the civil government than in being the Church. I contend the primary reason for this is that many within the New Religious Right are not committed to the Biblical Gospel. Some NRR adherents are seemingly so shallow in biblical knowledge and discernment that they fail to recognize the error of their commitment to a social gospel. Among other problems, the New Religious Right and NAR embraces ecumenicalism in order to build political coalitions, increase revenues to their organizations, and because they simply are not committed to biblical theology and doctrine.

Most pro-family organizations claim to be Christian and boast that they embrace "Christian values" because the majority of their supporters call themselves "Christian."  When it comes to defining what it means to be a Christian, however, most of the New Religious Right and NAR will not boldly reflect biblical Christianity in doctrine because they don't want to offend their Catholic and Mormon donors. So, in the end, many betray the Gospel in deference to "another" gospel embraced by these disparate groups.

But is "another" gospel of the New Religious Right and NAR any different than "another" gospel of the religious left?

From whichever side a social gospel originates, it is always man-centered. Its basic claim says man needs to fix or improve his condition through social activism, Christian activism, philanthropy, and good works. A social gospel leaves out the preaching and teaching that sin is the primary reason for the problems of our world. I believe Rick Warren's social gospel, for instance, involves leaving out the biblical Gospel so he can work with Muslims and other world religions to improve education, address poverty, combat disease, and promote globalism.

The social gospel from the New Religious Right and NAR is primarily about lowering taxes, decreasing the size of government, and giving people more political and economic liberty. But accomplishing these goals-as laudable as they may be-will not solve man's root problem of sin and rebellion against God. Our problems will not be addressed by more liberalism or more conservatism but only through the proclaiming of the biblical Gospel. If 80 percent of a society's problems and heartaches are directly related to the demise of the family unit, one merely has to ask why the family is in decline. The answer will quickly ring up "sin." Many with the New Religious Right and NAR seem to only hate sin because of the negative consequences that it has on the culture, not because it offends a Holy God. Sadly, many of the New Religious Right hate the sins of the unsaved but have tolerance for the sin of false teaching and false teachers.

Unfortunately, for many within the New Religious Right, it is too late. They have already compromised the Gospel by their willingness to unite with false teachers such as the New Apostolic Reformation and The Word of Faith movements.
What the New Religious Right does not seem to understand is that the culture war is really only a symptom of the serious spiritual problem from which man suffers, and only the preaching of the Gospel will cure this disease. Even if the New Religious Right could implement every law it wants and turn America into one great big town of Mayberry, the result would simply be a more comfortable and moral America from which millions of people could enter hell.

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