Social Justice and the Church: Gains, Missed Hopes, and a Swinging Pendulum

Twenty years later, what remains of the social justice fire that once animated so many young evangelicals? Some of that fire burned out. Some of it migrated into broader progressive or online activism, often less connected to the church or discipleship. Some of us became earnest suburban parents whose acts of social rebellion now include remembering recycling day.

And yet, something durable has been planted. Justice is no longer an exotic import to our churches- it has become part of the grammar of evangelical faith.

Full disclosure: this post was supposed to be one simple blog. It ended up becoming two. And what I thought would be part three of three? Well, that has now become four. Consider yourselves warned.

This piece asks: What have we gained? What have we lost? And what might God be doing beneath it all?

A Lost Ministry Rediscovered

The church I grew up in during the 1980s and 90s had no community ministries that I can recall: no op shop or food bank, no coffee group for young parents, no Mainly Music for toddlers. That’s not to say there was no desire to serve the wider community — but ‘service’ back then would’ve likely been framed in spiritual or communal terms. We did have a booming youth ministry every weekend and a vibrant evening service staffed by dozens of volunteers. If asked about community service, my youth leaders might have said, “We give young people something safe and fun to do on a Friday night,” or, “We offer community and a sense of meaning.”

By contrast, the churches I know today often sustain a surprising number of community ministries. At times, the abundance of worthy causes creates competition for volunteers and visibility, as smaller congregations try to do justice to them all. Even so, the underlying impulse remains unmistakable: a sincere and deliberate commitment to serving their local communities.

It’s not a perfect comparison- I grew up in West Auckland and now live in Nelson, so I’m talking about smaller provincial churches. But it’s the same family: the same denomination, and for the most part a similar charismatic–evangelical theology.

How Social Justice Reframed Mission

My conviction, however subjective, is that the change in thinking around community service over the past twenty years owes much to the Christian social justice movement. Through voices like Shane Claiborne and Mick Duncan, musicians like Bono and Brooke Fraser, and pioneering churches/organisations like Spreydon/South West Baptist and VisionWest, something long forgotten has been rediscovered: that the church exists, in part, to bless its community in tangible, practical ways.

And just in case you’re wondering, yes, I genuinely celebrate this (a friend recently read my last two blogs and accused me of becoming a Centrist Dad!).

Even so, I celebrate it with two caveats.

1. Social justice didn’t spark the renewal many hoped for

This may feel jarring, but it’s worth remembering that some of us once believed that rediscovering justice and community engagement could- or should- have sparked widespread revitalisation in discipleship.

This was the sentiment I alluded to a couple of posts ago. One evening in the crypt beneath St Paul’s, Symonds Street, several hundred of us gathered to eat after a day of serving communities across the city. The crypt was the very place where the charismatic renewal had begun in the late 1960s. Several speakers enthused us over dinner. One remarked that the movement we were part of was going to be every bit as influential on the church as the charismatic renewal had been. At the time, no one questioned this hubristic assertion. I certainly didn’t.

I hoped my charismatic Baptist community would eventually join in too. Connecting belief to service had brought my own faith to life, and I assumed the same would happen for them. To be fair, advocates of justice-based renewal never argued that justice itself produces renewal. Rather, that passionate disciples- Alan Hirsch calls them“holy rebels”- would bring a vitality that spills over into the wider church.

Hirsch, in The Forgotten Ways, writes:

“Paradoxically, while holy rebellion represents a real and perceived challenge to established forms of church, it is also the key to its renewal… They are the wellspring of new ways of experiencing God and participating in his mission, and because of this, they contain the seeds of Christianity’s ongoing renewal.”

We can debate why this didn’t come to pass. Was it because holy rebels weren’t welcomed? Or was the premise itself flawed? I say this without snark- I would have loved to see the justice movement profoundly reshape the wider church. I’m simply naming the gap between what we hoped would happen and what actually occurred.

2. The pendulum may have swung too far

I spent two years as the Social Services Enabler for the Nelson Anglican diocese and got to know the remarkable people running community ministries across the region. I saw deep compassion, clear awareness of need, and projects designed with creativity and care. Occasionally, I would ask the leaders how they built sharing of the good news into their work. Often this hadn’t been considered at all, and sometimes the response was a frosty: “That’s not my job,” or “We don’t preach at people around here.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that community ministry or social justice projects aren’t valuable in their own right. Jesus clearly calls us to care for the vulnerable. Nor was I advocating unthoughtful or belligerent ‘truth-bombing.’

I just thought, given the care and imagination invested in meeting people’s physical needs, I wondered if similar creativity might be applied to sharing the gospel. I wasn’t asking anyone to force an ulterior agenda into a secular programme- these were, after all, church initiatives- conceived, funded, and staffed by local Christians.

I realise these are anecdotal reflections, but I can’t imagine an equally committed ministry leader in the church of the eighties or nineties saying such things or overlooking such an obvious opportunity.

I feel sad at our seeming inability to recover one truth without losing another. “Truth,” noted Charles Simeon, “is not in the middle, and not at one extreme, but in both extremes.” That’s how I feel about social justice and evangelism. Jesus embodied the ability to care deeply about both the spiritual and material welfare of people.

Can’t we, like him, be all in on both?

In Part Two, I explore how social justice advocates and church leaders often talked past one another, why prophets tend to clash with institutions, and why many passionate justice advocates eventually drifted away- to liberal politics, to progressive theology, or from the church entirely.

Sources: Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways