The Social Gospel of Jesus

Dr Jordan B Peterson @jordanbpeterson

There is nothing Christian about #SocialJustice . Redemptive salvation is a matter of the individual soul.

Pope Francis @Pontifex

#SocialJustice demands that we fight against the causes of poverty: inequality and the lack of labour, land, and lodging; against those who deny social and labour rights; and against the culture that leads to taking away the dignity of others.

On the topic of social justice, if I had to choose between the Pope and Jordan Peterson, I’m going to go with the Pope.

Now, I do not believe in the “social gospel” of old liberalism from 19th/20th century Protestant theology. In old liberalism, the promise of the forgiveness of sins is replaced with the love of God and the brotherhood of man and the eschaton is collapsed into quasi-Marxism rather than working for and waiting for the new creation. Hard pass from me!

That said, Jesus does have his own social gospel, in that the gospel includes Israel’s liberation from exile, and the proof that Israel’s exile is ending is that the Isaianic signs of restoration are happening: the blind see, the lame walk, the captives are freed, and good news is preached to the poor!

Luke 4:14-30 narrates how Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth where he is invited to preach in the synagogue. Jesus stands up, reads from Isa 61:1-2, and then utters a nine-word sermon (in both Greek and English): “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus is then rebuffed by the audience as something of an upstart and he responds by quoting the proverbs of the sick physician and alluding to the stories of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kgs 17:1-24) and Naaman the Syrian (2 Kgs 5:1-14)—scandalous stories where an Israelite prophet heals Gentile outcasts. Jesus, therefore, warns his fellow Jews that if they reject God’s messenger then God will extend his blessings to those outside the boundaries of Israel (Lk 4:16-30). 

This episode, called the “Nazareth Manifesto,” illustrates how the gospel has a holistic vision of salvation. Jesus does not say: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the affluent middle classes who want enough religion to make them feel secure with God, but nothing that is going to challenge their consumerist, therapeutic, individualist, and indulgent way of life.” Rather, the biblical view of salvation means rescuing the poor, the oppressed, the blind, and the captive. If the gospel is to be good news, then it must have a good message for those on the margins of society, for those who know poverty, hunger, alienation, and shame. Accordingly, Luke’s favourite words for salvation are aphesis and aphiēmi, which refer to the act of freeing people from their sins (Lk 1:77; 3:3; 5:20; 7:48; 11:4; 24:27; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38-39; 22:16; 26:18), infirmity (Lk 4:39), and debts (Lk 11:4).

This perspective does not to reduce the gospel to a social gospel of the love of God and the brotherhood of man or to secular social justice projects with a light sprinkling of Bible verses. Rather, the biblical gospel is a justice-bringing, sin-forgiving, slavery-crushing, illness-healing, debt-remitting, low-status-reversing, sin-cleansing, outsider-including, and truthing-to-power gospel.  That was Jesus’s manifesto and it should be ours too! As the church goes forward in its mission it goes forth with the very same Nazareth Manifesto.