By grace through faith or a "spiritual journey"

Hello again, fellow bloggers! I must apologize for my absence as i have been somewhere between Canada and lake Huron on the very tip of the U.P. for InterVarsity training camp. During the camp i took my student leadership team through a week-long study of James. It's a great book. We especially enjoyed the context of the writing of James, how he is addressing a schism between Jewish social classes and oppression of the lower classes. James was well known as a friend of the down-trodden in society. Partly in response to this, we decided to engage our campus next semester with the question "Where is God?" in response to social injustices, like slavery, poverty, sex trafficking, etc... We want to show God's desires for these areas through our words and actions, but also proclaiming a Christ-centered and justification-centered gospel. I had to stress that last point because often it seems that recently we have put so much emphasis on how we should act as Christians in "reconciling all things" that reconciling them to Jesus gets lost in simply trying to make things right. By that i mean we try to make life better for everyone because we think that is our duty and that is why Christ died and rose again.
There are many books written, many by my own beloved IVP, proclaiming what we know as the social gospel, and it seems that sometimes Jesus is thrown in as an afterthought, if at all. There is a huge emphasis on this thing called a "spiritual journey" that "everyone is on together." Part of that spiritual journey is doing good things for people because Jesus came to set the captives free and heal the blind and help the oppressed. So that is what we should do.
Before i get too far here i want to ask if anyone else has noticed this trend, and if so, what do you think? Is it good? Bad? Just misguided? A step in the right direction? Must we line up on a side, chosing to emphasize only either personal justification or declaring Christ through merciful acts? I hope a few people are still reading this blog and can comment. I'd like to look at the newer Belhar confession in this discussion as well, since it addresses this and my denomination has adopted it as an additon to the 3 forms of unity for anyone who knows what that means (Kyle). Let's get the discussion started!