Anyone in church circles would have recognised that in the last 10-20 years there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of social justice in its various forms within the church. Where it was once the domain of the so called ‘liberal’ denominations, it is now standard fare for Baptists, Pentecostals and others who previously were much more concerned almost exclusively for ‘personal evangelism’.

I’m wondering how much of the shift has been because we have genuinely become enlightened and convinced of the truth and how much is a in fact a response to a culture that has become increasingly secular and hence difficult to penetrate with standard fare ‘personal evangelism’ methods.

If our context hadn’t become so secularised and our attempts at evangelism so poor would we have given ‘social justice’ the time of day?

You know… I’m not convinced we would have. For sure, there would always be those who carry the torch for the poor and the oppressed, but I’m not sure most of evangelicalism would have made the shift if the old strategies had still been working. If people had still been coming to church I’m not sure we would have seen any need to re-think what we were doing.

Perhaps our evangelistic dark period has been a blessing in disguise as it has actually allowed us to see and experience some truth we may never have seen otherwise.

Just a thought that rumbled through my mind today as I joined some pipes and laid some lawn…