The Prophetic Imperative: Social Gospel in Theory and Practice, Richard S. Gilbert. (2000, Second Edition, Skinner house). ISBN: 978-1-55896-411-2. 191 pages, including a selected bibliography and index.
In this new millennium we will need to do some serious soul-searching and world repairing--the two go hand in hand. We of the liberal religious faith are slowly, but steadily, being marginalized, overwhelmed by a confident fundamentalist political theology that threatens to engulf us utterly. However disparagingly we may speak of the Religious Right, it has tapped into something very deep; it has given its followers a spiritual rootedness in a dogmatic faith and a sense of purpose grounded in an absolutist politics.
We who eschew dogma and reject absolutism will need to work harder than the denizens of the Right, for our faith demands more of us. We need the power of condition even in the face of our ultimate uncertainty about the nature of reality and right and wrong. While it is perhaps better to be vaguely right than absolutely wrong, the very nature of our faith requires of us deeper conditions.
The times are dire, but then people who live under the prophetic imperative are always worried. I am hopeful, though not optimistic, about our capacity to repair the world in the face of the many unjust assaults upon it (p.29).
It is my personal conviction that the fundamentalists have gained the upper hand not because of the superiority of their dogma, but rather because we Liberals have failed to exercise our prophetic voice with authority. It is this that Richard S. Gilbert addresses in The Prophetic Imperative.
The Prophetic Imperative: Social gospel in Theory and Practice, is not a how to save the world book, but rather a practical challenge to the beloved community of faith to proclaim the Social Gospel in a way that is Prophetic.
"[S]ocial change today," Gilbert writes, "requires much more than charismatic individuals. It requires the mobilization of individual energies into communal power (p.6)." He goes on to say, "The prophetic church is a religious community that seeks to intervene in human history for the sake of social justice. This intervention is made in the context of religious conviction, but without the supernatural confidence of the Hebrew prophets (p.7)."
It is the "super natural confidence of the Hebrew prophets" that Gilbert calls us to emulate.
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The Hebrew prophets weren’t about treating the symptoms of social problems. They were about treating the underlying causes of social injustice, Gilbert reminds us. A prophetic ministry is about directing solutions to underlying causes. Not that it is not sometimes necessary to treat the symptoms, but doing that alone merely keeps us constantly administering the proverbial Band-Aids. Our challenge is to find a systematic approach that challenges the social and economic status quo that perpetuates social injustices.
Such a systematic approach is much more than papers and programs, it is hands on action that takes place on the streets, at the polls, and through political pressure.
Gilbert uses the term "Beloved community" as a "humanistically oriented substitute for Kingdom of God, deftly finessing issues of sexism, patriarchy, and theology and creating a poetic metaphor to describe not theological salvation in the next world, but social salvation in this (p. 26).
What does that mean in term of mission? Gilbert writes,
In short, what is our religious mission statement? My attempt to create one for myself goes as follows: 'In the love of beauty and the spirit of truth, we unite for the celebration of life and the service of humanity.' This is my faith as a militant mystic, a spiritual core coupled with an ethical imperative. By themselves, neither of these values can survive. They must stand together or the whole thing will fall apart (p. 28).
It is this mission statement that Gilbert expands in The Prophetic Imperative: Social Gospel in Theory and Practice. The book is broken into two parts: The first explores the “Theoretical Foundations” of the prophetic imperative. The second, “The Social Gospel in Practice.” Both sections are personal. Gilbert writes as “Militant Mystic” out to repair the world. If we would be true to our Liberal calling, The Prophetic Imperative has much to offer.
Skinner House offers a study guide for congregations.
Richard S. Gilbert, a “born Unitarian,” now retired, writes from 40 years of parish ministry experience in relating the church to the world. He has served parishes in Cleveland. Ithaca and Rochester. In addition to The Prophetic Imperative, he writes meditative books and essays. He holds degrees from St. Lawrence University, Meadville-Lombard Theological School, Star King School of Ministry, and Colgate Rochester Divinity School.
