Social Justice and the Gospel of Jesus Christ

There seems to be a grassroots movement among young adults in evangelical churches and schools to seek to solve the many issues that encompass the social injustice in the world today in some pretty radical ways. This movement has been at the forefront at a lot of student led programs at my own school, Oklahoma Baptist University for the last few years that I have been here. These efforts are commendable and, I think, a necessary vocalization and revelation of the problems worldwide in numerous people groups.

However, it appears that that within this movement there are those who would seek to elevate the injustices of hunger, poverty, child labor, and the like over the gospel itself, as sort of a neo-gospel with Jesus in the backdrop, as only the means by which we are called to address these issues. Love, in the broadest sense, is sought to be shown through strictly material and non-vocal ways, i.e. the ever popular "I'll share the love of Jesus by my actions, and that will be enough."

I take issue with this. I do not deny that some of the American church, at times myself included, has taken a sort of laissez faire approach to the material and immediate needs of people around the world, and indeed, even in our own nation. Regardless, Christians simply cannot divorce the vocal, deliberate gospel from the mission to eliminate social injustice. It is an empty attempt to soften the blow of the necessity of Jesus above all else. If we were truly to follow the example of Christ, it would be seen that He DID heal and he DID provide for people's material needs, but not without confronting the people with their sins and preaching the good news of the Kingdom.
Ultimately the message must be that regardless of whether or not people have a full stomach or enough money in the bank, whether or not they are healthy and are able to provide, Jesus IS sufficient. To elevate the mortal and material above the spiritual is to misrepresent Christ and to misunderstand why He came.