Martin / Taylor / Kidd Grimké on the Christian Life

Christian Vitality for the Church and World
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-4335-8237-0
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

Reihe: Theologians on the Christian Life

Francis J. Grimké's Vision of the Christian Life  Francis Grimké's life left a significant mark on American Christianity at the turn of the 20th century. Born enslaved in South Carolina, Grimké dedicated his life to teaching and preaching the gospel and confronting the racism and injustice of his time. For 50 years, he served as a Presbyterian pastor in Washington, DC, emerging as a prominent leader in the early civil rights movement. This book explores Grimké's vision of the Christian life, emphasizing his beliefs on personal piety, family, the mission of the church, and the relationship between faith and politics. His blend of doctrinal integrity and social concern helps readers wisely engage in topics like race, ethnicity, culture, and politics in the church today. As the church continues to navigate these polarized issues, Grimké reminds us that, through Christ, unity is possible. - Part of the Theologians on the Christian Life Series: Provides accessible introductions to some of church history's greatest teachers - Contemporary Application: Helps individuals address issues such as race, ethnicity, culture, and politics within the church today - Academic yet Accessible: For those interested in practical theology and the intersection between Christian faith, race, and politics

Drew Martin (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is associate professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary. He has served several churches as a pastor and as a church planter, is the author of The Covenant with Moses and the Kingdom of God, and writes on the history of Christian theology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Martin, Drew

Taylor, Justin

Kidd, Thomas

Leseproben

Chapter 2

Law, Gospel, and the Whole Counsel of God

When it comes to the central themes of Francis Grimké’s life and ministry, his emphasis on preaching both the law and the gospel stands out as one of the most important.

The Gospel of God as Humanity’s Greatest Need

Regarding the gospel, he expressed his concern that “much is being said about what is necessary on the part of religion or the church to meet the demands of this modern scientific age.”1 Grimké’s response emphasized that even if the world had changed, the central need of humanity had not, for “the great need . . . in this age is the same as it has ever been, the need of salvation, of being saved from the guilt and power of sin.” If humanity’s central problem had not changed, neither had the solution to that problem, for “there is only one way of meeting it.” That way is the one “set forth in the inspired record, in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament[s].” To put it in the simplest and most direct terms, the best way to meet humanity’s central need is “by preaching the gospel.”2

Grimké appealed to Paul’s language in the New Testament to emphasize that this preaching of the gospel should be carried out in clear and understandable language, “not with enticing words of man’s wisdom” but rather “in demonstration of the Spirit and power” (1 Cor. 2:4). He concluded his point by affirming the full continuity of the needs of the early church with those of his own day. The conditions of the early church “were just as difficult as the present,” and therefore the church’s need in every age was “to get hold of the truth, as set forth in the Word of God, and fearlessly and faithfully proclaim it.” Grimké made these claims about the gospel’s centrality forcefully and adamantly. “There is no other way, and it is foolish and futile to think of any other.”3

Though the preaching of the gospel is what people need more than anything else, Grimké elsewhere wrote that the church of his day was too focused on other concerns, and he lamented that the gospel message of Jesus was either taken for granted or forgotten. “We speak to people very seldom about their soul’s salvation; and, when we do, as a general thing, it is done in such a perfunctory way, that It shows that we have no real sense of the seriousness of the task to which we have set ourselves.” How could something so important be taken so lightly? Grimké suggested that one answer to this question involves underestimation of the stakes. “We do not speak as if we realized the tremendous issue at stake, the issue of life and death,—death, spiritual and eternal.” If those who profess to believe the gospel genuinely realized the true nature of unbelievers’ peril apart from the person and work of Christ, then “we would approach them in a very different spirit; and we would not be content to speak to them only once, we would keep after them until they heeded the call.”4 The church does not focus on the good news of the gospel enough, because it does not take the reality of sin and judgment seriously enough.

The Law of God in Both Evangelism and Discipleship

As a result, when Grimké championed the preaching of good news as the answer to humanity’s greatest need, he frequently pointed out that it is impossible to preach this gospel without also preaching God’s law. Therefore, it is essential for the church to reclaim the importance of preaching not only the good news but also the law of God that will make people appreciate the beauty and significance of that gospel message.

In fact, Grimké sharply criticized the church of his day for failing to appreciate the importance of preaching the whole counsel of God’s word and for failing to call for repentance as a central aspect of gospel proclamation. In 1916, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church hosted an Institute of Evangelism at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. After attending that institute, Grimké gave an address in which he expressed these concerns. He noted the ineffectiveness of the “evangelism that is current in this country.” He attributed this ineffectiveness to the failure to include “accepting Jesus Christ in the sense of adopting His standard of living,” “His principles of conduct,” and the demand that all believers make “an earnest and honest effort to conform the character and life to the spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ.”5

Preaching the “gospel” without preaching the need for repentance and commitment to following Christ in all of life is preaching cheap grace. The result is “men and women who come into the church through these evangelistic efforts” who, “in the great majority of cases, have no more idea or intention of doing what Jesus wants them to do, except qualifiedly, than they have of butting their heads against a stone wall.”6 In the society of his day, preaching cheap grace often was characterized by the failure to preach against the evils of racism. As a result, converts of such evangelism came into the church with a faulty understanding of the implications of the gospel for their lives as Christians. As Grimké put it:

They come into the church and bring with them all their colorphobia. Their acceptance of Jesus Christ does not change, in the least, their attitude towards the Negro; their prejudice towards him continues just the same as before they made a profession of religion. And, they do not feel, in accepting Jesus Christ, that a change in this regard is necessary; nor does the evangelism that is preached by the white people in this country assume that a change is necessary. It is an evangelism that makes them feel that they can still hold onto their prejudice and yet be good Christians, yet be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Evangelism of that kind is of no real value, counts for nothing in the sight of God; evangelism of that kind is an insult to Jesus Christ; accepting Jesus Christ in that way is nothing but sheer hypocrisy—hypocrisy on the part of those who profess to accept, and on the part of those who are content with that kind of acceptance.7

Grimké went on to point out that this problem came from the top down, for one of the very people being considered to chair the denominational General Evangelistic Committee had expressed in a private conversation that he did not “care to have anything to do with a colored man” who felt that he was his “social equal.”8 Not only that, but similar racist attitudes were central to the very institutions that prepared pastors for ministry. Though Grimké championed his alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary, as “not only the oldest, but the greatest of our theological schools,” and though he championed J. Ross Stevenson, the seminary’s president and moderator of the denomination’s General Assembly, as one of the “few strong men” of the denomination willing to “stand up” and protest “against the drawing of the color line in the church,” he also had to point out the blatant hypocrisy of the racism that was tolerated and allowed to grow at the seminary. Grimké noted that when he himself had been a student at the seminary forty years previously, he and the other students of color had been allowed to live in the dormitories alongside the White students. Now, however, Black students were not allowed in those dormitories.9 With this kind of training for ministry, it is no wonder that the church was failing to preach the whole counsel of God in calling people to faith and repentance.10

Proper evangelism needs to include a clear call to both repentance and faith. The call for repentance should not ignore the most prevalent sins of the day. A proclamation of the gospel that does not include a rigorous declaration of God’s law cannot be expected to produce genuine repentance, and therefore cannot constitute effective evangelism. But Grimké not only offered a critique of poor evangelistic proclamation; he also took the time to carefully describe in positive terms what a proper evangelistic communication of both the law and the gospel entails:

There is an evangelism that is genuine, an evangelism for which the great Presbyterian Church in the United States of America should stand, but for which it does not stand—an evangelism that means accepting Jesus Christ in reality and not in pretense—an evangelism that carries along with it brotherhood, that so presents Jesus Christ that [people] see, and see plainly, what is involved in accepting Him.11

Failure to preach the law, and especially the selective proclamation of God’s law, results in ineffective evangelism and flawed discipleship. Without the preaching of God’s law, people are not given the opportunity to see their need for the forgiveness of Jesus. Inviting people to come to Christ without allowing them to count the cost of faith and repentance is not treating them with dignity and respect. It is foolish to expect discipleship and growth in the Christian faith to happen when the full picture of the Christian life is held out of view. Therefore, Grimké was not surprised at the sorry state of the...