An recent article in The New York Times highlights the "chilling" abortion rate in New York City. And it has the attention of the city's religious leaders: 

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York joined other local religious leaders on Thursday in calling for a new effort to reduce the number of abortions in the city. The annual figure has averaged 90,000 in recent years, or about 40 percent of all pregnancies, twice the national rate. The archbishop, at a news conference in Manhattan, called the citywide statistics "downright chilling." 

Albert Mohler puts these startling statistics in the context of the national abortion rate of 22 percent, while reminding us that in 2008 (the last year full numbers are available) 1.2 million abortions were performed in the United States. Mohler is helpful in raising our view beyond New York City when he observes that, "The abortion rate in New York City staggers the moral imagination, but the abortion rate nationwide is itself 'chilling.'"

I'm writing this post even as this morning I learned that members of our church just became grandparents for the fourth time with the birth of baby Luke. And a young couple in our church is due with their first baby any day now. There is awful irony in a fallen world where there coexists the joyful embrace of new life and the mass killing of the unborn. Indeed, Mohler is right when he laments that "we are a murderous people, and the blood of the innocent cries out for justice." 

On January 23 we will recognize the annual Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. My hope and prayer is that God will awaken His church to labor for life well beyond that day.  

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At Immanuel Bible Church, where I have the privilege of serving on the pastoral staff, I'm currently working with a member who is in the grip of destructive addictions. A helpful resource I've been working through is Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave by Edward T. Welch. I knew I was learning from a wise counselor when I came across the following paragraph in the preface: 

What is the basic point of this book? Theology makes a difference. It is the infrastructure of our lives. Build it poorly and the building will eventually collapse in ruins. Build it well and you will be prepared for anything. The basic theology for addictions is that the root problem goes deeper than our genetic makeup. Addictions are ultimately a disorder of worship. Will we worship ourselves and our own desires or will we worship the true God? Through this lens, all Scripture comes alive for the addict. No longer are there just a few proof texts about drunkenness. Instead, since all Scripture addresses our fundamental disorder of worship, all Scripture is rich with application for the addict.

This rings true to me. Indeed, addictions are a disorder of worship. By definition an addiction is something that has our total allegiance. If we are addicted, we give our whole self to the object of our addiction. Another way of saying this is to say that we worship what we are addicted to.  

And what is so refreshing (and helpful) about Welch's book is his prescription, namely, theology. Indeed, Welch dares to put two words together: 'practical' and 'theology'. Practical theology, according to Welch, is "theology in action." Moreover,

It is the application of theological teaching to life. Is is asking "So what?" of our theological propositions. What difference does it make that I am united with Christ? What does it mean that people are idolaters? What difference does it make that I am created in God's image? All theology is practical theology, but some theological statements are still waiting to have many of their applications unpacked. 

Jesus Himself seems to think theology is immensely practical when he likens what convictions we build our life upon to how we build a house (cf. Matt. 7:24-27).  

A big part of pastoral ministry is to bring biblical theology to bear on the myriad of addictions going on in our people's hearts--even as we let the Word of God search our own. We do this so that all the energy we put into countless sinful addictions can be redirected to the worship of our great God in Christ. We do this so that worship can be made aright.  

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Writing for TIME magazine, Amy Sullivan brings to our attention an issue that has much of contemporary evangelicalism scrambling for clarity. The issue is the relationship between the gospel and "social justice." How this relationship develops, particularly among younger evangelicals, is fraught with potential pitfalls for the unified advance of the gospel in our day.

Sullivan's article argues that today's younger evangelicals (the under-30s) are "expanding their mission" by being deeply concerned not with "fire-and-brimstone conservatism" (like most people Sullivan invokes Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson as representatives of this "older" evangelicalism), but with issues like global poverty, creation care, and inner-city education. According to Sullivan, "Today's young Evangelicals … are socially conscious, cause-focused and controversy-averse."

Sullivan's article is helpful in noting several reasons for this shift. Some of the reasons, like seeing attention to social justice issues as the outworking of the gospel, seem good and right. Love to neighbor can look like a million things, including laboring in the inner cities of America to help provide a better education for poverty stricken families. But some of the reasons for this shift, if true (and I suspect they are), do cause concern.

First, Sullivan observes that many young evangelicals are engaged in social justice issues simply because it's popular:

Young Evangelicals are politically involved for that most prosaic of reasons as well: it's popular. Bono talks about his faith at the National Prayer Breakfast and challenges world leaders to forgive the debts of poor countries. Relevant magazine, a publication for young Evangelicals with 100,000 subscribers, urges its readers to "reject apathy" and educate themselves about issues ranging from "unjust war" to "creation care" (the Evangelical phrase for protecting the environment). A young minister named Tyler Wigg-Stevenson launched an Evangelical movement in 2008 to abolish nuclear weapons. And at a revival gathering called Passion 2010 in Atlanta over New Year's weekend, more than 22,000 Evangelical college students donated nearly $700,000 of their own money to support organizations working to dig wells in Africa, help children in poverty and save women from sex trafficking.

If a movement is based on popularity the inevitable question has to be asked, "What happens to the cause when it's not popular anymore?" It's hard to sustain anything long-term if it's based merely on popularity.

A second reason for the rise in popularity of social justice issues among young evangelicals is still more disquieting: the desire to not be like our parents. To make this point Sullivan invokes Don Miller:

Does all of this social activism mean young Evangelicals are liberals? Hardly. Theologically, they remain fairly conservative, but mostly they reject political and religious labels. In fact, many would rather you didn't even call them Evangelical (simply Christian is the preferred term). "For a lot of younger Evangelicals, it steals our identity," says Don Miller, whose spiritual memoir Blue like Jazz has sold more than 1 million copies and has developed a cult following among under-30 Evangelicals. "We're not like Pat Robertson. We're not like Republicans. We're not like our parents."

What Miller seems to be highlighting here is simply a form of rebellion cloaked in good deeds — hardly a motivation worth giving one's life to.

For the sake of moving this debate further along, let me suggest another reason many younger evangelicals might find social justice issues so attractive: it's easy. What do I mean by this? Surely I don't think working in inner-city Chicago to help poverty stricken children learn to read is easy, do I? Yes, in a relative sense.

The world will applaud your move to the south side if you're working in a school. But see what the world has to say if you plant a church. The world's applause will likely turn to scorn, and for a generation raised on social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace, this must be avoided at all costs. God forbid I lose a friend, follower, or page-view due to my overt gospel ministry. But tell my family and friends I'm going to give my life to help end global poverty, and suddenly I'm a rock star (or at least a lot like one). Social justice issues fit with Sullivan's description of younger evangelicals as "controversy-averse." No one argues with the need to feed the hungry. But people are killed for the proclamation of the gospel.

I'm grateful for Sullivan's article because it's an issue Christians must wrestle with. What is the relationship between the gospel and social justice? With Scripture as our guide, how should we think about this without just writing another "Four Views" book?

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