The Social Gospel movement was an early 20th century Protestant Christian movement which placed its emphasis on the application of Christian principles to society's problems. It is being regenerated today under the banner of Liberalism and has adopted the postmodern view of relative truth.

Adherents to Social Gospel movement believed in social progressivism and seek to harmonize Christian ethics with Socialist political action. Adherents also followed a liberal theology, Some go so far as to identify themselves politically as socialists.

Theologically, the Social Gospel leaders are overwhelmingly post-millennialist. That is they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rids itself of social evils by human effort. For the most part they rejected pre-millennialist theology according to which the Second Coming of Christ is imminent and Christians should devote their energies to preparing for it rather than addressing perceived social evils.

There are of course two things wrong with this movement and they are readily apparent. First man can not on his own rid the world of evil, social or otherwise. The only way to accomplish that is through God and His Grace: through our Lord Jesus Christ. The second problem is that this movement disregards the scriptures clearly showing the premillennial coming of our Lord.

One of the early results of the growing dominance of the Social Gospel movement was the parallel development of evangelism and fundamentalism. Today we need another "Great Awakening" to combat this cancer on Christianity.

For more information and commentary on this movement see articles at:
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