These difficulties notwithstanding, there might still be possibilities for sociology if the gospel which we preached retained its integrity as the sovereign will of God demanding and enabling the response of man in the totality of his being. But the disturbing fact is that in recent years the preaching of the Gospel has gone awry. How has this happened? We have reacted rightly from the pragmatist panacea type of apologetic: the "if only" preaching, which is not a gospel but a sort of insurance policy—"if only" you would repent and turn to God, then peace and security for mankind would be round the corner. Rightly reacting from this perversion of the Gospel we are now eager to say that God is to be proclaimed for God's own sake and his glory, without much mention of the sort of society which reflects God's glory. Again, we have reacted rightly from an over-liberalized evangel which appeals to reason and assumes that unconverted human reason can perceive divine truth without conversion of the heart. So, reacting alike from a false pragmatism and a false intellectualism, we have come back to the gospel which proclaims God in his own right and calls for moral decision and submission....
This is an excerpt from The Most Rev'd., and Rt. Hon. Michael Ramsey's address on faith and society given to the Church Union School of Sociology in 1955. Note that Ramsey was Bishop of Durham at the time.
Thanks to Kendall Harmon for exciting my interest in this article.
It should and can be read in it's entirety here.
