to have lived long enough to see the evangelical wing of the church move from viewing social work as “nice” to integral to the gospel.

There have been some interesting twists in the journey of faith of my family. My grandmother was born into a “high” Presbyterian family in Scotland around 1885. As a young woman she embraced the work and beliefs of the Salvation Army. However this was not well received, after all they were working and associating with lower class and people of ill repute. Grandma was disowned. She met my Grandpa and immigrated to Canada. There they joined a Pentecostal church and the emphasis again changed.

My grandparents and parents were very conscious of others and went out of their way to serve anyone and everyone. But the churches, meetings, conferences and teaching all led us to believe that “mainline” churches and the Salvation Army did “social” work and ours did the “real” work of the gospel.

It’s really only been over the past few years as I have become involved in relief and development and rubbed shoulders with evangelicals from many other countries that I have begun to see how much of this teaching distorts scripture and even the gospel itself. Now I find myself frustrated or cringing every time I’m asked if there is an evangelism component to a relief and development program or if we are preaching the gospel.

I actually find it rather embarrassing now to read scripture with an open mind. Subjects, such as “the gospel”, the role of Christians (even the definition and signs of being a Christian) become totally different when looked at carefully. The scripture’s emphasis on the poor and our responsibilities to justice and the dispossessed, under privileged and disenfranchised, all jump off the pages with much more prominent roles than a simple one dimensional responsibility of leading people to “salvation” that has crippled our ability to provide the light of God’s kingdom as Christ obviously called us to do.

One might feel able to rationalize that the magnitude of the issue of eternal damnation versus heaven outweighs all of the scripture around our Christian responsibilities to widows and orphans etc. because this is an overarching or defining issue. However it is inexcusable for us to have allowed our scripturally explicit responsibilities to slip into the background the way we did in some communities of faith.

But I started out by saying “I feel fortunate”. Despite a few letters from people who are genuinely concerned about slippage and the great falling away there are encouraging signs illustrating how many of us are looking very soberly at what it truly means to be Christians with a calling to live in this world and convey Christ’s compassion and love.