The Gospel According to Bono

Michael Gershon, former assistant to the Bush White House, writes:

During my time in the White House, the most intense and urgent evangelical activism I saw did not come on the expected values issues—though abortion and the traditional family weren't ignored—but on genocide, global AIDS and human trafficking. The most common request I received was, "We need to meet with the president on Sudan"—not on gay marriage. This reflects a head-snapping generational change among evangelicals, from leaders like Falwell and Robertson to Rick Warren, focused on fighting poverty and AIDS in Africa, and Gary Haugen, confronting rape and sexual slavery in the developing world. Since leaving government, I've asked young evangelicals on campuses from Wheaton to Harvard who they view as their model of Christian activism. Their answer is nearly unanimous: Bono.

You can read the full article here.

My question is, Is this a good thing? Is it a good thing that Bono is the evangelical hero? Also, is he the hero only because he gets the press? Or, because he's cool?

My second question is, Was this inevitable? From my brief study of the last 100 years of church history in America the shift to the social gospel was the natural outgrowth of a shift from the gospel. This was the trend in the mainline denominations, and, right on schedule, evangelicalism is 50 to 100 years late.

I think the unwarranted dichotomy between doctrine/truth and feelings/experience and our obsession with comfort in this world has led to this shift, just like it did 100 years ago.

Now, don't get me wrong. We should address and advocate against AIDS in Africa, genocide, poverty, abortion, euthanasia, etc. However, I don't think we should do so at the expense of the gospel. This is a case of both-and, not either-or. There should be a marked difference between evangelical social concern and the Red Cross, and that difference should be the gospel.

In the end, there really is no such thing as a social gospel. The social gospel is a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all because food and clothing trumps and silences sin and the Cross.

There is no good news or love in feeding a hungry sinner while keeping the message of salvation from her. Though left with a full stomach, she still suffers from an empty soul.