Answering the Social Question

How Did I Get Here?

I’ll never forget the words from Presbyterian pastor and author Duke Kwon that changed my life.

It was April 2020, just a few months into the pandemic. Like many other pastors (and most Christians) during this season, my world was turned upside down by divisions within Christianity over politics, responding to COVID-19, and the national outcry over racial injustices. I lost friends simply for suggesting that Christians should be on the side of justice. I was accused of teaching a false gospel for confronting racism and political idolatry. At times, I was physically and emotionally threatened for trying to love my neighbor. It was a confusing and discouraging yet defining season of my life.

I was ill-prepared for the challenges of this season. Most of us were. To be clear, I am very thankful for my seminary education in so many ways. My professors and their curriculum taught me how to think theologically, study the Scriptures, and keep a love of Christ at the center of my ministry. However, when I left the seminary in 2017, I had yet to learn how to think and practice Christian ethics. I was completely unaware of any Reformed ethical tradition. I didn’t know then how unprepared I would be for the dominant issues I would face in ministry just a few years later.

I did my best to teach and practice what the Scriptures say about justice, righteousness, and fulfilling the greatest commandments. I believed that Reformed doctrines of sin, grace, and the kingdom of God ought to lead to integrating social justice with our rich theology, but it was rare to find anyone who agreed with me. More than that, I believed our commitment to the Scriptures should result in our taking the words of Jesus concerning the poor and vulnerable seriously. Yet, because I did not know of any ethical tradition from my own Reformed heritage, I often felt altogether lost, grasping for what I thought should be there but didn’t really exist.

I turned to the teachings of Civil Rights leaders like Dr. King and James Baldwin and non-Christian contemporaries such as Ibram X. Kendi to try to discern what justice should look like. This, of course, exacerbated accusations of “cultural Marxism” or “critical race theory.” It was exhausting and disheartening, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Duke’s book Reparations, which he co-authored with Gregory Thompson, would not be out for another year. I had heard that this book would be published, and I was eager to hear how two Presbyterian pastors would approach this complex issue. So, when I discovered a lecture Duke gave on the subject, I cleared my schedule and sat down at my desk to listen.

For the next hour, I listened to Duke’s masterful biblical and historical theology, made relevant and compelling by the demands of justice in our present age. I had never heard anything like it! For the first time, I heard a Reformed leader addressing social injustice from the Reformed tradition. The theological ethics I believed should exist but could never find unfolded before me.

Two specific words Duke said changed everything for me. At one point in his lecture, Duke referenced the Scottish Presbyterian Thomas Boston (1676-1732), calling him an “unlikely ally.” These words arrested me. I heard Duke saying, “I would not have expected to find precedent for economic reparation in our Reformed ancestors, but I did, and we can build on their work.”

That’s when these thoughts really hit me for the first time: What if there is a tradition of Reformed ethics, and I’ve just missed it? What if my Reformed ancestors did address complex issues of injustices, and we’ve just ignored or forgotten their work? What if there are riches of theological ethics just waiting for us to rediscover and apply anew to the demands of our present age?

I immediately opened some commentaries on the Ten Commandments and the Westminster Larger Catechism to do my own research on how Reformed theologians from centuries past may have addressed economic reparations. I was overwhelmed by the depth and thoughtfulness of the likes of James Usher (1581-1656), Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), and Thomas Ridgely (1667-1734), who each made strong cases for economic reparation even when those we have wronged are dead, even when it is unclear who we should repay.

From there, I continued reading these commentaries on the Commandments as my heart swelled by the careful depth with which my Reformed ancestors applied God’s law to our lives. I started re-reading books I had previously read with an eye toward ethics rather than doctrine alone. In John Calvin’s (1509-1564) Institutes, I discovered a profound theology of systemic sin (ex. 3.4.11) and social responsibility (ex. 3.7.4-7). In John Murray’s (1898-1975) Collected Writings, I likewise found a Reformed doctrine of the responsibility we bear for other Christians in their sin and guilt (See Corporate Responsibility in Volume 1). In Herman Bavinck’s (1854-1921) Reformed Dogmatics and The Wonderful Works of God, I was astonished by how detailed his descriptions of contextual systemic sin were (ex. Wonderful Works, 225-226, 230).

The next evolution of my research occurred when the second volume of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics was published in December 2021. As I read his work on the Ten Commandments, I was deeply moved by how broad and sweeping Bavinck’s thought was. I discovered a rich application of the Ten Commandments to contemporary issues, such as the Sixth Commandment (“You Shall Not Murder”), to matters of fair wages, hours, and working conditions.

While I had read Bavinck’s Dogmatics in seminary, only after reading his Ethics did I begin to appreciate Bavinck’s distinct voice and the critical impulses of neo-Calvinism to apply the historic Reformed faith to contemporary concerns. I started digging further into neo-Calvinism, leading me to Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) and the life-changing book The Problem of Poverty.

In this great Reformed thinker, I discovered the explosive summons for Reformed churches to address economic and social injustices against the poor and working classes. The challenge of these injustices – what Kuyper and his contemporaries referred to as “the social question” – was the “burning life-question” confronting the church in the modern age. Kuyper challenged the churches to address these injustices as part of our central calling in the world. His words pierced my heart and still do today.

In the few years that have followed, I have acquired dozens of resources from the Reformed tradition that address complex economic and social injustices. I have learned that there is, in fact, a vibrant Reformed ethical tradition. The failure to uphold and develop these ethics in Reformed churches today does not lie in the Reformed tradition itself but in those who have not applied them. Those who, like me, believe Reformed theology should lead to just social praxis need only look to the forgotten resources of their tradition to discover the theological, ethical, and ecclesiological resources to address contemporary concerns.

After my first calling as a husband and father of four young children, I am a church planter in one of Indianapolis’ most historically neglected neighborhoods. My research has fueled this ministry as we attempt to follow Jesus in establishing a faithful, just, and Reformed church in the urban context.

Two years ago, I began a Doctor of Ministry degree in Urban Ministry with Soong-Chan Rah at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. I intentionally chose this degree to expand my perspective while having my developing Reformed ethics challenged by peers and academics who do not share my theological convictions. I am currently shadowing a PhD program in neo-Calvinist public theology that I hope to begin in a few years.

Along this journey, I have encountered many wonderful people who have resonated with my work, which inspired me to start this Substack earlier this year. This Substack exists to utilize the Reformed and neo-Calvinist to answer “The Social Question” of our day: those economic and social injustices facing the most vulnerable in our society who live on the margins, those whom God has promised to protect and uphold (Psalm 146:7-9).

I did not expect such a positive response to this work when I started the Substack just eight months ago. I am grateful to everyone who has followed this work and engaged with me along the way. You inspire me to continue looking to the past for answers to our most challenging social issues today.

I am committed to keeping all of my content free. Though subscriptions are never expected, I am thankful for those who have paid for subscriptions or tipped me on articles.

If this work interests you, would you consider subscribing so we can learn to follow Jesus to the margins together?

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Thank you!