Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion

by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

The basic goal was the same: building up an institution that justified itself by the number of people who showed up to receive spiritual nourishment. Whatever material ministry the church engaged in was secondary to this mission. No one could deny that Jesus calls us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and visit the imprisoned. But those works of mercy had been imagined as auxiliary ministries, dependent on the central mission of building up a spiritual institution. No one had ever made this case to them. It’s simply what they understood when they heard the word church. But what if church was something else? What if it was the movement Jesus invited people into when he invited them to join together in “setting the oppressed free”? What if evangelism was inviting others to join this movement and church work was organizing local efforts to keep the movement moving?