I’m pretty sure this will be posted and linked to and all that all across evangelical blogs, but I have to quote it here. This is from a pastor’s colloquium at The Gospel Coalition.

“The social gospel has poisoned the church twice.”  The first time, of course, was when the social gospel was first introduced as a (theologically) liberal agenda that minimized the preaching of the gospel.  But the social gospel is poisoning us again, [Tim] Keller argued, because today evangelicals are so concerned about falling into the error of the old social gospel that we do not put nearly the emphasis that the Bible places on caring for the poor.

This is so true. If a Christian engages social justice issues, there seems to be a line of other Christians standing there yelling ‘Social Gospel!!’ I have seen this done to Derek Webb even though he totally denies the accusation. Let’s hope that when someone with Keller’s reputation condemns the practice the community listens. When I defended Webb I was ignored.