Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references.  Walter Rauschenbusch 

Born October 4, 1861 Died July 25, 1918 Known for Key figure in the Social Gospel movement Religion Baptist Part of a series of articles on Christianity Social Christianity

Major figures Francis of Assisi Wilhelm E.F. von Ketteler Pope Leo XIII · Adolph Kolping Edward Bellamy Margaret Wedgwood Benn Phillip Berryman · James Hal Cone Dorothy Day · Toni Negri Leo Tolstoy · Óscar Romero Gustavo Gutiérrez · Abraham Kuyper Daniel Berrigan · Philip Berrigan Martin Luther King, Jr. Walter Rauschenbusch Desmond Tutu · Tommy Douglas

Organizations Confederation of Christian Trade Unions Catholic Worker Movement Christian Socialist Movement

Key concepts Subsidiarity · Christian anarchism Marxism · Liberation theology Praxis School · Precarity Human dignity · Social market economy Communitarianism · Distributism Catholic social teaching Neo-Calvinism · Neo-Thomism

Key documents Rerum Novarum (1891) Princeton Stone Lectures (1898) Populorum Progressio (1967) Centesimus Annus (1991) Caritas in Veritate (2009)

Walter Rauschenbusch (October 4, 1861 - July 25, 1918) was a Christian theologian and Baptist minister. He was a key figure in the Social Gospel movement in the United States of America.

Contents 1 Evolution of Thought 2 View of Christianity 2.1 Social Responsibility 3 The Brotherhood of the Kingdom 4 Veneration 5 Influence 6 Works 7 Notable Biographies 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References

Evolution of Thought Rauschenbusch was born in Upstate New York to a German preacher who taught at the Rochester Theological Seminary. He was raised on the orthodox Protestant doctrines of his time, including biblical literalism and the substitutionary atonement. Though he went through a youthful rebellious period, at age 17 he experienced a personal religious conversion which "influenced my soul down to its depths." Like the Prodigal Son, he wrote, "I came to my Father, and I began to pray for help and got it."[1] But he later felt that this experience was incomplete, focused on repentance from personal sins but not from social sins. When he attended Rochester Theological Seminary, his early teachings were challenged. He learned of the Higher Criticism, which led him to later comment that his "inherited ideas about the inerrancy of the Bible became untenable." He also began to doubt the substitutionary atonement; in his words, "it was not taught by Jesus; it makes salvation dependent upon a trinitarian transaction that is remote from human experience; and it implies a concept of divine justice that is repugnant to human sensitivity." But rather than shaking his faith, these challenges reinforced his faith. He came to admire Congregationalist Horace Bushnell and Anglican Frederick W. Robertson.

View of Christianity Rauschenbusch's view of Christianity was that its purpose was to spread a Kingdom of God, not through a fire and brimstone style of preaching but by leading a Christlike life. Rauschenbusch did not view Jesus' death as an act of substitutionary atonement but in his words, he died "to substitute love for selfishness as the basis of human society." He wrote that "Christianity is in its nature revolutionary" and tried to remind society of that. He explained that the Kingdom of God "is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven."

In Rauschenbusch's early adulthood, mainline Protestant churches were largely allied with the social and political establishment, in effect supporting the domination by robber barons, income disparity, and the use of child labor. Most church leaders did not see a connection between these issues and their ministries, so did nothing to address the suffering. But Rauschenbusch saw it as his duty as a minister and student of Christ to act with love by trying to improve social conditions.

Social Responsibility In Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Rauschenbusch wrote that "Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master." The significance of this work is that it spoke of the individual's responsibility toward society.

In his Theology for the Social Gospel (1917), he wrote that for John the Baptist, the baptism was "not a ritual act of individual salvation but an act of dedication to a religious and social movement."

Concerning the social depth and breadth of Christ's atoning work, Rauschenbusch writes: "Jesus did not in any real sense bear the sin of some ancient Briton who beat up his wife in B. C. 56, or of some mountaineer in Tennessee who got drunk in A. D. 1917. But he did in a very real sense bear the weight of the public sins of organized society, and they in turn are causally connected with all private sins."

Rauschenbusch enumerates "six sins, all of a public nature, which combined to kill Jesus. He bore their crushing attack in his body and soul. He bore them, not by sympathy, but by direct experience. Insofar as the personal sins of men have contributed to the existence of these public sins, he came into collision with the totality of evil in mankind. It requires no legal fiction of imputation to explain that 'he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.' Solidarity explains it."

These six "social sins" which Jesus, according to Rauschenbusch, bore on the Cross:

"Religious bigotry, the combination of graft and political power, the corruption of justice, the mob spirit (being "the social group gone mad") and mob action, militarism, and class contempt-- "every student of history will recognize that these sum up constitutional forces in the Kingdom of Evil. Jesus bore these sins in no legal or artificial sense, but in their impact on his own body and soul. He had not contributed to them, as we have, and yet they were laid on him. They were not only the sins of Caiaphas, Pilate, or Judas, but the social sin of all mankind, to which all who ever lived have contributed, and under which all who ever lived have suffered."

The Brotherhood of the Kingdom In 1892, Rauschenbusch and some friends formed a group called the Brotherhood of the Kingdom. The group's charter declared that "the Spirit of God is moving men in our generation toward a better understanding of the idea of the Kingdom of God on earth," and that their intention was to reestablish this idea in the thought of the church, and to assist in its practical realization in the world." In a pamphlet, Rauschenbusch wrote: "Because the Kingdom of God has been dropped as the primary and comprehensive aim of Christianity, and personal salvation has been substituted for it, therefore men seek to save their own souls and are selfishly indifferent to the evangelization of the world."

Veneration Rauschenbusch is honored together with Washington Gladden and Jacob Riis with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on July 2.

Influence Rauschenbusch's work influenced, among others, Martin Luther King; Desmond Tutu; and his grandson, Richard Rorty.[2] Still today, social justice ministries sometimes take the name Rauschenbusch in honor of the theologian's life and work. Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries in New York (http://rmmnyc.org/) and Rauschenbusch Center for Spirit and Action in Seattle (http://www.rauschenbusch.org/) are two such examples.

Works As a key intellectual leader of the social gospel movement, Rauschenbusch wrote several books, including:

Christianity and the Social Crisis. 1907. New York: Macmillan. Christianizing the Social Order. 1912. New York: Macmillan. Theology for the Social Gospel. 1917. New York: Abingdon Press. " Social Principles of Jesus". 1918. New York; The Association Press ("Los Principios Sociales de Jesús" Editorial "La Aurora" Buenos Aires 1947. (This work, considered a primer for those wanting to study the Biblical foundations for social gospel, was republished in a Special Edition in 2010 by WordStream Publishing http://www.amazon.com/Social-Principles-Jesus-Walter-Rauschenbusch/...) In addition, he translated a number of hymns from English into German. Many of these were published in Evangeliums-Lieder 1 & 2, edited by Rauschenbusch and Ira Sankey. (1904. New York/Chicago. Bigelow & Main Co./John Church Co.)[1]

Notable Biographies Sharpe, Dores Robinson. Walter Rauschenbusch. 1942. New York: Macmillan Company. Minus, Paul M. Walter Rauschenbusch: American Reformer. 1988. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Evans, Christopher. The Kingdom Is Always but Coming. 2004. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company.