Dr Kenneth Murry
In its teaching about the world the New Testament provides direct witness for a conclusion that should be inferred from our theology of sin. If sin is as pervasive as we say that it is, if it violates a divine intent which is not removed from history, if it is not tolerable in life but a force which is viciously destructive of person and society, if it is not only against the will of God but against nature, then it will affect not only our personal motivations, decisions, and acts, but also our social life. It will powerfully influence our customs, traditions, thinking, and institutions. It will pervert our cosmos.
The consequences of acknowledging the presence of evil in institutions are considerable. Our attitude to society will be changed. Our struggle with evil must correspond to the geography of evil. In combating evil in the heart through evangelism and Christian nurture we deal with a crucial aspect of evil, but only one aspect. Dealing with the evil of the social order and the worldly powers involves social action, action in the world. Christian social reform has been effective when there has been a sense of a stronghold of evil in society which must be resisted. Evangelical reform in the past century was characterized by this perspective, particularly in the struggle against slavery. William Knibb, a British missionary who was a hero in the struggle for abolition in Jamaica, wrote upon his arrival on that island, “I have now reached the land of sin, disease, and death, where Satan reigns with awful power, and carries multitudes captive at his will. His mission board, like many Christian bodies before and since, failed to discern the instruction of evil into the prevailing practices of social life. Aware of the anger of the powerful planters at amelioration proposals, they wrote to Knibb: “You must ever bear in mind that, as a resident of Jamaica, you have nothing to do with its civil or political affairs; with these you must never interfere.”
“The Gospel of Christ, as you well know, so far from producing or counternancing a spirit of rebellion or insubordination, has a directly opposite tendency.”
The discovery that evil resides in the social order as well as in our personal life confounds the common inventory of besetting sins. “Stealing, gambling, profanity, desecrating of Sunday, murder, lasciviousness, or whatever is eternally wrong” is a typical list of what is often considered public unrighteousness. The biblical sins of economic exploitation or oppression or hoarding of wealth from the poor have vanished. But the prophets spoke out not only against sinful personal relationship between groups with unequal shares of power. Thus they attacked broad economic pattern, such as the consolidation of the holding of peasants into vast estates of the rich. In Scripture, sin includes participation in social injustice or failure to correct them. Yet insensitivity to social evil often dulls comprehension when this dimension is encountered in the reading of Scripture.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Some familiar hymns use the striking wording of this verse: “Whiter than snow, whiter than snow, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” But do we recognize that the sins spoken of are specific social evils? The preceding two verses state: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.
“The heart is deceitful above all things; and desperately corrupt” is a familiar verse. Less well known is the fact that the first example of this condition Jeremiah gives is “he who gets riches but not by justice.” The biblical witness provides the key to the identification of the characteristics of the fallen social order and the marks of the social holdings of the powers.
The Christian should become sensitive to sin arising from social conditioning. Social evil lies close to home. The powers which rule through the cosmos speak with a familiar voice. As mentioned above, the sociology of knowledge has shown us the degree to which, through socialization, our class position effects the way we think. According to John Bennett, the interests of class distort the day to day decisions of the ordinary citizen more than do his or her individual interests. But we are also conditioned in our outlook by considerations of race, sex, and national loyalty. We should examine our inner selves to discover these biases.
The recognition of the habitation of evil in social life will affect our activity in the world. It will change the mode of Christian citizenship from passive obedience to active responsibility. We can no longer discharge our responsibility by passively accepting the status quo (the order which is) as the will of God. John Calvin spoke of ‘Public evil’ in which vice was protected by custom and laws; either the affian of men must be altogether despaired of, or we must not only resist, but boldly attack prevailing evils. The cure is prevented by no other cause than the length of time during which we have been accustomed to the disease. It is in this context of the corruption of the system that the Christian is enjoined to the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13) resisting corruption just as light resists and combats darkness; “You are the light of the world.”
We served a different order, the Reign of Christ, which he sets up in contrast to the prevailing way of life in the social order as supported by the fallen power. To the old order there must be enmity; according to James 4:4 to be a friend of the fallen order is to be an enemy of God. We are to follow the Lordship of Christ who judges the world and conquers it. Christ’s victory over the powers is sure; He has disarmed them. The hostilities still continue, however, for it is only at His return that “every power and every authority and power” will be brought to an end. By faith we live in Christ’s victory, yet we must continue to struggle.
This struggle against the hold of the forces of evil is expounded in the Letter to the Ephesians. We are to fight the demonic powers which rule the world by arming ourselves with truth, justice, peace and the Word of God. We are to expose the unfruitful works of darkness, taking the offensive against sin. The many-sided wisdom of God will be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. Through the Church in his interpretation of these passages, Heinrich Schlier sees the church opposed to the principalities as a heaven of justice and truth. Human history is seen as a great struggle between the principalities and the church, ending in the downfall of the demonic spirits. The church is to be engaged in a battle against evils within the social structure, because they mark the points of these powers’ penetration into our history.
Mobilization for social change follows more clearly, however from the mandates and models associated with God’s activity in the world than from the theology of the cosmos. The direction of our efforts is suggested by such themes as the scope or Christian love, the implications of divine grace, the mandate to justice, and the dimensions of the Reign of God.
