A Theology of Social Action and Justice – Part IV

A congregation may teach its members to pray, read Scripture, avoid personal immorality, share their faith, and support the church, yet give them little guidance about what obedience to Jesus requires in workplaces, voting booths, businesses, schools, neighborhoods, and public institutions. Their private lives are discipled while their public lives are effectively outsourced. Political parties teach them what to fear, employers define success, consumer culture forms desire, social media supplies enemies, and national stories tell them who belongs.

The Great Commission requires a more comprehensive formation. Jesus commands his followers to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything he commanded. Public discipleship is therefore whole-life discipleship: the formation of Christians to follow Christ wherever their choices, relationships, occupations, possessions, and institutions affect the life of the neighbor.

Evangelism announces the gospel, baptism incorporates believers into a new community and allegiance, and discipleship teaches them to obey. Christian traditions that emphasize conversion have sometimes treated it as the completion of mission rather than its beginning. A person professes faith, joins a church, and learns the practices of personal devotion and morality, but receives little formation regarding money, work, citizenship, power, race, violence, or institutional responsibility. Those devotional practices are indispensable, but Jesus did not instruct the apostles to teach selected commands concerning prayer, sexuality, attendance, and individual honesty. They were to teach obedience to everything he commanded, including love of enemies, truthfulness, forgiveness, mercy, economic responsibility, care for vulnerable people, rejection of domination, reconciliation, generosity, peacemaking, and justice. The Great Commission must therefore be read with the Great Commandment, because the commission tells the church to make disciples while the commandment reveals the governing shape of the life into which they are formed.2

A convert may assent to Christian beliefs while remaining captive to racial hierarchy, nationalism, consumerism, contempt, exploitation, or political idolatry. A disciple must learn to bring those loyalties under judgment. Public discipleship is not simply the formation of Christians who discuss politics; it is the formation of believers to follow Christ........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)