Was Spurgeon "Woke?" — The Heritage Blog

Mar 1

Mar 1 Was Spurgeon "Woke?"

If one will permit the anachronism for a moment, the simple answer is no, Spurgeon was not woke. Not even a little. Efforts to make him into a kind of Victorian-era social justice warrior who saw systemic injustice around every corner will ultimately be disappointed. The fact is, Spurgeon deprecated what the generation after him would term the “social gospel.”

Moreover, he spoke out against socialism, advocated for classical liberal principles (such as limited government and freedom of speech), and was socially and theologically conservative. He believed in meritocracy, the virtues of personal responsibility, and the importance of safeguarding individual rights within the framework of a truly biblical understanding of justice. Spurgeon was many things, but he was not “woke” in the contemporary sense of the word.

A Benevolent Ministry

However, none of this should indicate that Spurgeon had no place for mercy ministry, social concern, and advocacy for the needy and the oppressed. On the contrary, he was known for all of these things. Spurgeon gave himself to care and concern for the poor of London with extraordinary zeal and heartfelt compassion. He believed a vigorous commitment to good works of benevolence and mercy was not merely optional or preferable, but rather essential to the Christian life and the ministry of the local church.

In an 1862 sermon, he declared, “To me a follower of Jesus means a friend of man. A Christian is a philanthropist by profession, and generous by force of grace; wide as the reign of sorrow is the stretch of his love, and where he cannot help he pities still.”

In another message in 1869, he said, “A church in London, which does not exist to do good in the slums, and dens, and kennels of the city, is a church that has no reason to justify its longer existing…. A church that does not exist to take the side of the poor, to denounce injustice and to hold up righteousness, is a church that has no right to be.”

Spurgeon’s own church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was renowned for its commitment to mercy ministry and social engagement. By 1884, the Tabernacle housed sixty-six benevolent institutions that encompassed practically every area of human need. It included an orphanage, a college that offered free education, subsidized housing for poor widows, a clothing bank, a mission to prostitutes, a host of children’s ministries, and several street missions.

In addition to these ministries, Spurgeon was known for his advocacy for the afflicted and disenfranchised. He used his platform to champion better working conditions for the poor, advocate for slaves in the American South, and speak up for disadvantaged children who had little to no access to education.

Spurgeon was also personally benevolent, donating thousands of pounds (the equivalent of millions of dollars) over the course of his life to many dozens of charitable causes. His student and friend W. Y. Fullerton remarked, “His generosity knew scarcely any bounds.”

Undergirding Spurgeon’s emphasis on social ministry was his understanding of the gospel and the Bible’s teaching regarding good works. He believed that the grace of God shown in the gospel ought to change lost sinners into merciful and compassionate people. Those who experience God’s grace ought to become gracious and benevolent in their attitude and disposition toward others. Christians should be universally kind, generous, and merciful toward the poor and the needy as the direct result of new birth.

To Spurgeon, this was a basic mark of genuine conversion. Moreover, Spurgeon believed the Bible was filled with actual imperatives that call God’s people to engage in good works on behalf of the poor and the afflicted. Passages like Matthew 5:14-16, Luke 10:25-37, Galatians 6:10, Titus 2:14, and James 1:27 require Christians to give themselves to good works in order to serve and help needy people.

Thus, Spurgeon believed kindness, mercy, compassion, generosity, and charity toward the poor were a matter of basic biblical imperative.

Lessons for the Left and the Right

Many have asked me over the last couple of years, as I have been working on Spurgeon and the Poor, what would Spurgeon think of our present debates surrounding evangelical social concern? That’s not an easy question to answer, as Spurgeon’s age and context were radically different from our own. Yet based on my research and writing, I can speculate, and I do so to some degree in the book. I think Spurgeon would have something to say to folks on both the left and the right in these debates.

A Caution

First, Spurgeon would warn left-leaning evangelicals against missional drift. By left-leaning, I mean to indicate those who are perhaps sympathetic to the social justice movement, are passionate about championing social causes, and often speak in terms of transforming society.

Spurgeon was a vigorous opponent of what would, in the generation after his death, come to be known as the “social gospel.” He believed the mission of the church was to preach the gospel, make disciples, and build up healthy local churches. He believed the church’s mission in the here and now is chiefly a spiritual mission.

The church is called to rescue perishing sinners from an everlasting hell and to teach them to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who are eager to observe and obey all of the Lord’s commandments. The mission of the church is not chiefly bound up in social activism, legislative reform, and building a kind of kingdom of heaven on earth.

The alleviation of material poverty and suffering may be worthy causes, but they are not the primary mission of the church. To evangelicals on the left who have become consumed with political activism and social justice, Spurgeon would call them back to the Great Commission and the work of building Christ’s church through the proclamation of the gospel.

A Corrective

At the same time, I believe Spurgeon would also bring a corrective to reformed and conservative evangelicals who perhaps have neglected social concerns and have not paid enough attention to the second great commandment.

It must, of course, be granted that our context today is quite different from Spurgeon’s. For most of his life, there was no national system of social welfare in England. Moreover, his evangelical context was undisturbed by the incursions of what today may be referred to as wokeism and social justice. Many of the legitimate anxieties contemporary conservative evangelicals feel surrounding the notoriously fraught subject of social concern were simply not part of Spurgeon’s world. The last hundred years or so has radically reshaped this conversation and introduced new difficulties that Spurgeon did not have to navigate.

Nonetheless, I still think Spurgeon would critique contemporary conservative evangelicals for failing to pursue adequately the kind of good works of mercy and charity the New Testament so often commends. I believe he would appeal to both the Bible and Christian history to argue that benevolent social concern has always been a distinguishing trait of the people of God.

Wherever Christians have gone, good works of generosity and mercy have gone with them. Whether it was the founding of hospitals and orphanages all over Europe in the early centuries of the church or the explosion of benevolent institutions and agencies that accompanied the evangelical revivals, Christians have always been a people zealous for good works. Christians are the people who help. They are those who show compassion and care for the needy. As Spurgeon said, “Time was when, wherever a man met a Christian he met a helper.”

Help the Poor

Christians seek to provide help and aid to the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. They seek to bind up the wounds of the suffering as they tell them about salvation in Jesus. They work to release captives as they preach to them about the one who brings freedom from sin’s bondage. They advocate for the oppressed as they point men and women to the Savior who delivers from Satan’s oppression. Christians work to undo and beat back sin’s effects as they preach the good news of the one who is coming to make all things new.

Spurgeon preached a gospel of forgiveness and redemption in Christ that brought in its train a host of good works. This is a ministry worthy of emulation. I suspect Spurgeon’s word to those within his own theological tradition today would be something like the word of the Apostles to Paul and Barnabas in Galatians 2:10—“remember the poor.”