Walter Rauschenbusch

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name = Walter Rauschenbusch

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birth_date = October 4, 1861
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death_date = July 25, 1918
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known_for = Key figure in the Social Gospel movement
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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 USA.

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. But when he attended Rochester Theological Seminary, those 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.

ocial Responsibility over Individual Responsibility

In "Christianity and the Social Crisis" (1907), Rauschenbusch wrote that "no man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything that it touches. 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 society's responsibility rather than the individual's responsibility.

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."

Influence

Rauschenbusch's work influenced, among others, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and Richard Rorty, who was his grandson. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001268.html]

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.

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.

References

*Bawer, Bruce (1997). "Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity". New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80222-4.