Historically, the dualistic approach is new to Christianity. Without getting too technical, it has to do with the emergence of the Social Gospel through Rauschenbusch and the Fundamentalist (our Evangelical forebears) reaction against it. As Rauschenbusch and others emphasized a gospel that affected the here and now but had little to do with spirituality. Fundamenalists ran the other direction and adopted a gospel that has to do with all things spiritual, but systems and issues here on Earth are secondary. The Social Gospel is reminiscent of early paganism and the Fundamenalist spiritualization of everything is sadly akin to Gnosticism. I don’t want to throw both the Social Gospel and Fundamentalism under the bus because there is still a lot of good we can gain from them.

But as I said, the dualistic approach is not generally a Christian notion. The abolitionists you mention are a great example. So are the reformers. When John Calvin entered into Geneva, the literacy rate was something like 5%. 100 years later, literacy was 85% or higher — I heard that in a lecture at seminary. Around the world, most Christians do not separate these two issues. Another great example in our country would be the Catholic Church. Charity has always been understood as evangelistic and vice versa.

I think a key we’ll need to adopt is the idea of praxis where our reflections and actions continually inform each other. Our actions on behalf of justice must inform and influence how we read the Bible and how we pray. Our worship, prayer, and study must also influence and inform our engagement of the world around us. My assumption — because I’ve experienced it — is that the Spirit will lead us in new directions outward and those actions will likewise shape our prayer and what we see in the Bible.

I like the point that justice matters are always spiritual matters. Great idea.

Cool to see you guys doing evangelism around sex trafficking. Who could be against that kind of approach? I’d guess it passed muster even with the IV development people :^)

Campus ministry is elementary school vis a vis justice stuff. The current American local church is mostly kindergarden.

I’m glad you guys are calling people to conversion around justice issues. I pray for them. But the folks that come out of your ministry will be shocked at the lack of interest in this stuff when they join the available evangelical local church options.

I’d love to see more gifted leaders leave elementary school and give themselves to creating second level discipleship structures. Missions and churches that are willing to do the wider agenda of Jesus.

My wife is an elementary school teacher. She’s doing wonderful work that I respect.

But eventually you need high school and university level leaders and structures to get people living like the real thing.