Gospel-Centered or Gospel-Only?
How the "Gospel-Centered" movement overcorrected and what we can do about it
“I Can’t Breathe”
When George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin in the summer of 2020, the country was cast into a full-blown war over the nature, structure, and pervasiveness of racism in 21st-century America. Spearheaded by the Black Lives Matter movement and fueled by national media attention, it seemed no one could avoid having an opinion on a host of radioactive claims about race—so much so that not having a vocal opinion—or not having one at all—was its own kind of social sin (“Silence is violence!”).
Not since the Civil Rights Movement had race relations been this much at the forefront of the national consciousness. As a result, the church was forced to respond (as it has throughout church history), and it did so, unsurprisingly, without a singular “Christian” perspective. In the course of this response, however, something very interesting occurred across the evangelical church: many who were influenced by the “Gospel-centered” movement of the prior 15 or so years entered the unfamiliar space of arguing passionately about issues not directly related to the Gospel itself (or revisiting that long-abandoned turf).
The Gospel-Centered Movement—Fruit and Failure
The Gospel-centered movement announced a salutary call to reconsider how the Gospel informed every area of Christian activity—from parenting to education to finances and, of course, church life. It bridged the gap from theology to practice in ways that many had never considered and encouraged looking at all of life through a Gospel lens. But for all its good—and there was a lot of it—it didn’t deliver on the “all of life” part and instead morphed into something that felt closer to the “spiritual-things only” movement.
Save the issue of abortion, social and political aspects of the Christian life were downplayed, being perceived as threats to unity at best and distractions from Christ and evangelism at worst. Christians could have opinions about “the issues,” sure, but they were to hold them loosely and not make them a point of focus.
The functional downplaying of social and political aspects of the Christian life was initially received as a breath of fresh air for those repulsed by the very public marriage between the church and the Republican Party that characterized much of the ’80s and ’90s (e.g., Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority). The call to see churches united around Christ as opposed to a candidate was inspiring and on the right track. And the movement made many needed corrections of emphasis—but at a cost: the severe atrophy of certain philosophical and theological muscles in the church that were immediately called upon to lift heavy weight the moment Derek Chauvin was done applying his own to the back of George Floyd’s neck.
A Missing Discipline
The result was absolute chaos—a chaos only exacerbated by social media, where people who had not read a book since high school stood ready to help others “understand” the dangers of deconstructionist thought and Marxian power dynamics. Many evangelicals could name prominent Protestant pastors, and some could name a contemporary theologian or two—perhaps even a few apologists. But even those who could list ten pastors and twenty theologians had trouble naming a single Protestant authority on social and political theology or philosophy. It’s not that they didn’t exist, but they simply weren’t great in number or well known, even among many of the most bookish and theologically well-informed. Al Mohler and the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission were about as high as the ceiling rose.
Throughout this period, I remember routinely asking pastors if they had taken a single course in social or political philosophy, political theology, or public thought in seminary, and the overwhelming answer was, “No.” Despite having a degree in philosophy, my seminary experience didn’t include such training either. Furthermore, I discovered that the trend was not limited to pastors who attended seminary during the Gospel-centered movement but extended to pastors who attended seminary decades before. Thus, while this lacuna in evangelical thought was highlighted by the events of 2020 and following, it would be a mistake of oversimplification to blame the Gospel-centered movement for creating a problem that it only amplified.
2025
We’re now just over five years since Floyd, and to say things have changed in the national landscape would be a seismic understatement. Not only has Black Lives Matter been all but forgotten, but DEI initiatives are in rapid decline. Additionally, on some fronts, the LGBTQIA+ crowd is experiencing more problems than running out of letters, like the NCAA’s February rule change prohibiting biological men from competing in women’s sports. Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Evangelical publications on social and political issues have surged (a mixed bag, but progress nevertheless). There’s a lot for which to be thankful.
And yet, there is also a lot of work to do. Protestant social teaching is still light-years behind Catholic social thought and its current stars (e.g., Robert George at Princeton, Ryan Anderson, author of When Harry Became Sally, the book “banned by Amazon,” Sherif Girgis at Notre Dame et al.), and many of the Protestant heavyweights aren’t evangelical (e.g., Stanley Hauerwas). Many seminaries have begun to offer electives in public thought, but it would serve seminarians far better to have such classes included as part of the required core and leave “Introduction to Evangelism” to the local church.
Finally, because pastoral teaching flows downstream from scholarship, publications, and seminaries, much of the sharpest thought in the discipline is only beginning to trickle into pews. If church history has taught us anything, it’s that the next social and political “issues” are headed our way, and the church must respond. Some issues—like immigration and nationalism—are already upon us.
Five Suggestions
What have we learned from the past five years, and how can we avoid repeating our mistakes? A few suggestions:
Evangelicals should be encouraging more of their sharpest folks to pursue advanced degrees in social and political philosophy, political theology, sociology and political science. Abandoning these disciplines to secularists and Catholics has been a huge mistake. I would bet no more than 1 in 100 Christians could name a Christian political scientist or sociologist. We won’t see this change unless we encourage it.
Evangelicals should seek to inhabit a middle ground between caring about little more than spiritual formation and the Great Commission on the one hand, and being politically captured, party loyalists on the other. There is healthy real estate between being Amish and being an activist, being concerned and being consumed. We need more Christians intentionally filling that gap.
Evangelicals should not expect their pastors to be talented cultural exegetes or reorient their pulpit ministries toward transforming society. However, the Bible has a lot to say about “the issues,” and especially when they come up in expositional preaching, pastors should seek to address them with wisdom.
Evangelicals who listen and learn online should follow wise guides where they can learn in bite-size pieces. This isn’t a knock—I am aware that very few people are going to read Mark Amstutz’s book on just immigration or Shenvi and Sawyer’s massive takedown of critical theory. But everyone can follow people who have and learn from them in short-form media and publications.
Finally, evangelicals should encourage one another to have conversations about social and political issues with flesh-and-blood interlocutors. This should not be seen (in itself) as divisive or distracting from ministry or the Gospel and space should be made for healthy disagreement without ostracization.
There’s more to be said, but this very doable framework represents a healthy push(back?) in the right direction. The only question is whether we'll build on what we've seen in the last five years or be content with fumbling the ball when the next set of social and political issues emerge.