What you think about the kingdom of God matters. It you think that the point of giving/evangelism/church is to advance God’s kingdom by supporting “justice,” then you likely will end up having your money going toward some kingdom-building justice project that is neither advancing the kingdom or the gospel. I don’t mean to sound harsh toward World Vision—after all, they did try to walk back their announcement last week. But the marks of indifference towards theology were there before last week. If you are in the kingdom building business, you had better have your understanding of “kingdom” clearly defined. And frankly, the phrase “advancing justice” does not do it justice.

Last week’s gay-marriage flop-flip with World Vision did not come out of left field. (Monday they announced that a monogamous homosexual relationship was in-step with Christian faithfulness, and on Wednesday they said ‘ummm…nevermind; sorry about that’).  But this was a schisim that was a long time coming, and illustrates a profound danger inherent in mercy ministries that are not built upon a theological foundation.

It was about a year ago when Richard Stearns, the World Vision president, spoke at Q. There he urged the attendees to stop engaging in cultural battles, and in context the taboo issues were abortion and gay marriage. In fact, he said younger Christians “need to stop shaking their fist at the culture” and then later, “no one ever died from gay marriage…they die from poverty.” The implication being that what really matters is not one’s doctrine of marriage (or of life, or of Scripture), but one’s track record with the poor.

Stearns has justified this triage view of Scripture by saying that World Vision is “not the theological arm of the church.” That reminds me of Richard Baxter’s response to someone who told him he should teach practical theology: “Is there any other kind?”

But before last week’s announcement, and even before last year’s Q, the writing was on the wall—or more particularly, in a book. Stearn’s theology is best described in his book The Hole in Our Gospel, which presents a fairly shallow view of the Christian’s call to minister to the poor of the world, and that shallowness is compounded by his understanding of the Kingdom of God (Kevin DeYoung has an excellent review of the book here). It represents an approach to theology that makes confusion over basics (like marriage) almost a given.

Stearns writes:

“Christ’s proclamation of the ‘kingdom of heaven’ was a call for a redeemed world order populated by redeemed people—now. In other words, the perfect Kingdom of God…was to begin on earth” (Hole in Our Gospel, 16).

That statement later gives way to this one: “Jesus’ mission was proclamation of good news, compassion for the sick and sorrowful, commitment to justice.” Then, without explaining what is meant by saying Jesus’ mission was a commitment to justice, he adds that evangelism includes “efforts to right the wrongs that are so prevalent in our world.”

Stearns secession of thought in his book is evidence that a failure to grapple with the nuances of mercy ministry ultimately ends up corrupting evangelism—and all of that comes from a flippant view of theology to begin with.

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