This was a question posed in Evangelicals Now, back in December by John Samuel and Richard Buggs. The question was prompted by a statement in the 2011 Cape Town Commitment from the Lausanne Movement which also found its way into the 2024 Lausanne Congress. It reads:
If Jesus is Lord of all the earth, we cannot separate our relationship to Christ from how we act in relation to the earth. For to proclaim the gospel that says ‘Jesus is Lord’ is to proclaim the gospel that includes the earth, since Christ’s Lordship is over all creation. Creation care is thus a gospel issue within the Lordship of Christ.
Samuel and Buggs are supportive of concern for Creation Care but consider the statement to be ambiguous and unhelpful. They refer supportively to a letter sent from 4 majority world theologians expressing concern that:
“‘this statement is likely to hinder, rather than help, the cause of creation care within evangelicalism, as it can be interpreted as associating creation care with a different gospel’. Creation care is ‘an important fruit of the gospel … but it is not part of the gospel’,”
Their concern is that we should not muddy the waters when it comes to describing the Gospel. Anything that confuses the Gospel of Grace with works is concerning and they think that this is the risk with the statement. Note that they are not saying that the statement does muddy those waters but that there is a risk because of ambiguity. Why do they think this? Well, it comes down to what we mean by the term “Gospel issue”.
“Within evangelicalism the term ‘gospel issue’ has long been understood to refer to something that is essential for personal salvation. Gospel issues form the core of what we unite around and set the boundaries of what we are (and are not) prepared to divide over.”
Now, Christopher Wright who was involved in drafting the 2011 statement disagrees. Samuel and Buggs report a conversation with him on route to the 2024 Congress.
On the way to the Lausanne 2024 Congress, one of us (Richard) asked Christopher J.H. Wright, the lead writer of the Cape Town Commitment, what it meant by ‘gospel issue’. In reply, he referenced an article on his website. In this, Wright says of the Cape Town Commitment: ‘It speaks of the gospel not just as a personal salvation plan, but in its full Biblical richness as the good news of all that God has done through Christ and the imperative that it addresses to us. So it speaks of the story the gospel tells, the assurance the gospel brings, and the transformation the gospel produces’ (p.189).
What begins to stand out from both Samuel and Buggs’ comments and the reported conversation with Wright is that before identifying what a Gospel issue is, we need to agree on what the Gospel is. Samuel and Buggs seem to draw the lines narrowly, “Gospel” pertains to personal salvation. Wright and those involved with him of he statement seem to follow a wider definition, the proclamation that “Jesus is Lord.” In so doing, they follow the likes of NT Wright who has argued along these lines.
It is worth noting that a simple declaration of Jesus’ Lordship is not in and of itself “good news” and cannot be the Gospel. For many people, such a message is one of judgement. The announcement of Jesus’ Lordship tells us that we have been part of a wicked, unlawful rebellion. It only becomes good news when it includes the means of salvation.
However, I’m inclined to say that if we talk about the Gospel and Gospel issues purely in terms of salvation, then we may have defined things more narrowly than the Bible does Remember that in Ephesians 2:8-10 we discover that we are saved by grace alone but that we are saved for good works. Consider too how Romans 8 points to creation itself longing and groaning for the revelation of the sons of glory. The Gospel is not simply a ticket to heaven as some poor evangelistic approaches used to suggest. Rather, it is about how God is putting all things right in Christ Jesus. Because it is our sin that is at the centre of the Fall of all creation, our salvation must be at the centre of the reconciliation and renewal of all creation.
Our concern in terms of alternative Gospels then is with anything that treats works or creation care as something distinct, an alternative way to bring that reconciliation to God. This can be a problem with some approaches especially when they drift into a social Gospel. I suspect too that some forms of climate care might risk this too. However, I suspect that Lausanne was taking the view I suggested above, that the bigger picture is of God renewing all things and that this flows out of our salvation by grace alone.
Samuel and Buggs argue regarding Wright’s approach that:
In our view, such a definition makes everything into a ‘gospel issue’. To be consistent, the Lausanne movement should enumerate a long list of gospel issues, that would presumably include war, abortion, human trafficking, and perhaps all aspects of culture that can be renewed by Christ. However, we would have lost an established terminology that clearly demarcates what is essential for salvation.
Well, it is worth observing that the language of “gospel issue” has been used to describe Paul’s interaction with the Galatian church on their exclusion of uncircumcised gentiles from table fellowship. Is who you eat with a Gospel issue? Well Paul was recognising that the way that they were behaving became a Gospel issue in that it was beginning to exclude people from fellowship and so making statements about their salvation. So, yes, in some senses, all of the above issues could become Gospel issues depending on how they are handled. In fact, if create care is put up there as an alternative way to be right with God, it is a Gospel issues, just as it might be if there is a lack of Gospel fruit including a concern for the world around us.
However, I wonder whether the real problem here is that we have a bit of terminology that by its nature is rather loose and vague and can encompass all kinds of things. Perhaps it simply doesn’t work in theological triage. Should our concern be to protect a bit of terminology, yes it’s well established in terms of contemporary conservative evangelicalism but it isn’t a Bible term and so I don’t think we need to be wedded to it.
Faithroots 