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Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern
Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern
As evangelical Christians committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and the full authority of the
Word of God, we affirm that God lays total claim upon the lives of his people. We
cannot, therefore, separate our lives from the situation in which God has placed us in the
United States and the world.
We confess that we have not acknowledged the complete claim of God on our lives.
We acknowledge that God requires love. But we have not demonstrated the love of God
to those suffering social abuses.
We acknowledge that God requires justice. But we have not proclaimed or demonstrated
his justice to an unjust American society. Although the Lord calls us to defend the social
and economic rights of the poor and oppressed, we have mostly remained silent. We
deplore the historic involvement of the church in America with racism and the
conspicuous responsibility of the evangelical community for perpetuating the personal
attitudes and institutional structures that have divided the body of Christ along color
lines. Further, we have failed to condemn the exploitation of racism at home and abroad
by our economic system.
We affirm that God abounds in mercy and that he forgives all who repent and turn from
their sins. So we call our fellow evangelical Christians to demonstrate repentance in a
Christian discipleship that confronts the social and political injustice of our nation.
We must attack the materialism of our culture and the maldistribution of the nation’s
wealth and services. We recognize that as a nation we play a crucial role in the imbalance
and injustice of international trade and development. Before God and a billion hungry
neighbors, we must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living and
promote a more just acquisition and distribution of the world’s resources.
By this declaration, we endorse no political ideology or party, but call our nation’s
leaders and people to that righteousness which exalts a nation.
We make this declaration in the biblical hope that Christ is coming to consummate the
Kingdom and we accept his claim on our total discipleship until he comes.
Dick Ostling of Time magazine said that he thought it was probably the first time in the
20th century that forty evangelical leaders spent a whole weekend discussing social
action. And the Chicago Sun Times said that some day church historians may write that
“the most significant church-related event of 1973 took place” at this gathering.”
The historic moment was not lost on two journalists who covered the Chicago meeting
and saw some “man bites dog” value to the story. Evangelical Protestants at the time
tended to be seen as Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority, the solid backers of the social
status quo. But in Chicago they were speaking out against injustice. Marjorie Hyer of The
Washington Post wrote at the time that the November weekend’s discussions “could well
change the face of both religion and politics in America.” And Chicago Sun-Times
religion writer Roy Larson wrote, “Someday American church historians may write that
the most significant church-related event of 1973 took place last week at the YMCA hotel
on S. Wabash.”