A Prophet's Ghost Still Whispers

In The Evangelical Dictionary Of Biblical Theology, Mark Noll describes Walter Rauschenbusch as “undoubtedly the most influential American Christian thinker in the first third of the twentieth century.” He is not alone in elevating the man known as the father of the Social Gospel to a place of major influence. That the vast majority of Church leaders, less than 80 years after his death, would never have heard of Rauschenbusch suggests that as much as there must be something crucial about his theological perspective there must also be something that caused him to be dismissed. At the beginning of the new millennium, many are calling for his thoughts to be listened to afresh. As the centenary of his first major book Christianity and The Social Crisis approaches, in 2007, major social activists are writing chapters for a book in his honour. What made his contribution so important? Why was he almost forgotten? And why are there those rekindling his flame?

Rauschenbusch’s moment in history is fascinating and has a big role to play in his thinking. In his mind and ministry and eventually his theology there was a late 19th century clash of ideas. Marxism was raging with the possibility of a new society. There was the hopefulness of Darwin that evolution was continuing to move and maybe men could reach some greater potential. As well as these philosophies and politics, the world was in the midst of a new order of industrialization. This was creating an ugly unjust gulf between the rich and the poor. Shake these three things into one thought filled cocktail and you get the taste of Rauschenbusch’s theology.

Rauschenbusch was born in 1861. His father was a German Lutheran pastor who had become a Baptist pastor when he immigrated to America. His formative years and theological perspective embedded in pietism, Rauschenbusch followed him into the Baptist pastorate. When he headed to Hell’s Kitchen in New York to start his ministry in a German Baptist Church, there was little doubt as to his motivation or mission. He was about the saving of souls and the preaching of individual conversion. What he experienced in the impoverished needy streets of New York changed his life, his ministry, his theology and consequent Church history. It might be over romanticizing it to say that Rauschenbusch’s “second conversion” to social action had nothing to do with the halls of academia and was forged in the street but there is no doubting that it was his pastors heart being shredded raw that fired his mind and soul.

It was a particular moment in American history. Industrialization had reaped its rewards and havoc. It has made some people very wealthy but had also left the majority in a place of real poverty. Rauschenbusch was walking around, trying to being the good news of Jesus to those who had become the downside of the new age. There was nothing in law or governmental aid that was stopping exploitation or easing the conditions of the oppressed. His own descriptions of these days reveal its impact upon him:

“I saw how men toiled all their life long, hard toilsome lives, and at the end had almost nothing to show for it; how strong men begged for work and could not get it in hard times; how little children died – oh the children’s funerals! they gripped my heart – that was one of the things I always went away thinking about – why did the children have to die?... A single little human incident of that sort is enough to set a great beacon fire burning, and to light up the whole world for you…And in that way, gradually, social information and social passion came to me.”

Children dying so young seemed like a sin to Rauschenbusch; so he redefined sin. Rauschenbusch’s pietism was rocked. He was appalled at how people could be committed to their own private pietistic efforts while not only ignoring the social ethics of community issues but actually contributing to the social sin of the community. He would write in A Theology For The Social Gospel, “To find the climax of sin we must not linger over a man who swears, or sneers at religion, or denies the mystery of the trinity, but put our hands on social groups who have turned the patrimony of a nation into the private property of a small class, or have left the peasant labourers cowed, degraded, demoralized, and without rights in the land.”

For Rauschenbusch, once he spent time on the impoverished streets of Hell’s Kitchen in New York he looked very differently at what Biblical discipleship should be concentrating upon. The piety of his background would become secondary to his new social agenda. He writes, “The fact that a man is too respectable to get drunk or to swear is no proof of his righteousness. His moral and religious quality must be measured by the intelligence and single-heartedness with which he merges his will and life in the divine purpose of the kingdom of God.”

Although most of the human abuses caused by industrialization in Rauschenbusch’s day have since been dealt with to improve workers conditions, housing and health it would be wrong to think his message was longer relevant. For industrialization the contemporary scene could substitute globalization. As the new millennium begins we find that Hell’s Kitchen has moved to the third world where many people are being exploited for the good of the fat cat businessman. Those who fund missions to share the good news of the Gospel with African, Asian and south American people are also oppressing the same people and seemingly seeing no contradictions. Those who campaign for Third World debt relief, HIV/AIDS drug patent laws and Fair Trade issues are singing from the very same hymn book as Rauschenbusch. The issues have changed but the social sin has not gone away.

Speaking of hymn books. Another group that needs to hear Rauschenbusch’s ghost whisper to them are those involved in the writing of new worship material. The Church is at an unprecedented time in its history when it comes to hymn writing. It has become a multi-million pound business with CDs, Festivals and worship leading pop stars. Churches cannot get enough of new songs. Rauschenbusch who collaborated with a hymn writing pop star of his own day IRA SANKEY and wrote a book Prayers of the Social Awakening said of his day, “We need hymns that will voice the new social enthusiasm. As you know old fashioned hymnals are almost bare of any such material…I think this is really of great deal more importance than other scientific undertakings that we might contemplate.”

Today’s deluge of worship is similarly bereft of social enthusiasm as were the old fashioned hymns Rauschenbusch mentions. The narrow theological views of modern worship which has also, through the CD, become the music not only sung in Church but listened to in the car on the way to work, leaves people’s theological engagement restricted too. As well as the benefits of Rauschenbusch’s call for social issues to improve people’s spiritual energies, we must look at the damage being done through the narrow subject matter. It draws the believer back into a very individual faith view. Private pietism is the obsession and no connection is made with the wider world.

Rauschenbusch defined sin as “essentially selfishness – sensuous (self), selfishness (good of man) and godlessness (universal good).” Sin works its way out of us in unsocial and anti-social behaviour. We rebel against God when we set our profits and ambitions above the welfare of our fellow human beings. If we loved our neighbour we wouldn’t. That we do is our rejection of The Kingdom of God.

This would be one of Rasuchenbusch’s major contributions. He smashed the individual view of theology and spirituality and forced Christians to see the wider implications. He was really disillusioned at the idea of conversion in the Church of his day. Living in the shadow of leaders like DL Moody who set off a trail of Evangelistic campaigns he concluded that “things have simmered down to signing a card, shaking hands or being introduced to the evangelist.” In A Theology For The Social Gospel he revealed his aims, ““Its (The Social Gospel) chief interest is concentrated on those manifestations of sin and redemption which lie beyond the individual soul.”

Rauscenbusch’s influence would affect Martin Luther King Jr., “It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the social and economic conditions that scar the soul, is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried.” One of the current American prophets, Jim Wallis, puts it well, “Faith is always personal, but never private.” For Rauschenbusch, as later with King and Wallis, any even cursory reading of the prophets would find a privatization of faith impossible to defend.

Rauschenbusch saw the prophets as the “beating heart” of the Old Testament. To find a verse to best sum up their mission he turned to Micah 6 v 6-8 which asks how we should come before God. After dismissing sacrifices and rituals as useless, he concludes that God requires his people to “do justly, and love kindness and walk humbly with thy God.” In Christianity and the Social Crisis he quotes various prophets in order to make it clear that God was interested in social wrongs and not just individual ritual. Indeed he felt prophets never bothered with personal sin at all.

For Rauschenbusch there was a Kingdom of Evil where the super-personal forces of evil ran riot. This is of course an antithesis and works against The Kingdom of God which was central to all of Rauschenbusch’s theological thinking. The idea of the Kingdom of God encapsulated Rauschenbusch’s beliefs. “Does not the Kingdom of God consist simply of this – that God’s will shall be done on earth, even as it is now in heaven.” He saw it as an umbrella term for all his spiritual convictions, “the saving of the lost, the teaching of the young, the pastoral care of the poor and frail, the quickening of starved intellects, the study of the Bible, church union, political reform, the reorganization of the industrial system, international peace – it was all covered by the one aim of the Reign of God on earth.”

Rauschenbusch saw this as the unifying theme of the entire Bible especially the Old Testament Prophets and the Synoptic Gospels. Amos and Micah were social reformers, realizing that religious morality had to impact the nation not just individuals. Jesus and the early Church brought such radical revolution to life again. He felt that The Kingdom of God had shriveled in Church history and that this had endless consequences. He felt that where it was still thought of it was seen as the Church. This too disabled its power which he thought was the “revolutionary force of Christianity.” This force was obviously in its battle against the Kingdom of Evil.

There is no doubt that Rauschenbusch’s emphasis of the Kingdom was a crucial reawakening at this particular moment of history. Most of the classic Systematic Theologies of that time ignored any mention of The Kingdom of God. He felt its loss was a sign that the synoptic tradition had been lost too. Whatever, the loss of such a concept left the Church bereft of vision and energy in impacting the wider world.

Context plays a very key role in all Rauschenbusch musings. In many ways this is a forerunner of the Liberation Theology that would spring up in Latin America later in the twentieth century; some have, indeed, called it American Liberation Theology. Like Liberation Theology, Rauschenbusch looked at the situation of the poor in Hell’s Kitchen and began to read The Bible and think his theology from that perspective. He has been criticized for being too narrow in his social concerns, leaving racism and woman’s suffrage from his agenda. The context of industrialization was his contextual focus. The Kingdom became central.

The prophetic edge of Rauschenbusch’s rage is very empowering. For those of us who get frustrated with the confines of our evangelical mindset there is a Biblical energy to his wider mandate. If he had stuck to the prophetic, using his knowledge of Church history to critique and reawaken what got damaged or lost it would have been enough. That he added in his final book an attempt at systematic theology was unnecessary but even worse he leaves you frustrated and less enthusiastic about his work.

Where he goes astray is by forcing himself to re-write all the main tenets of theology from his Social Gospel context. A Theology Of The Social Gospel was his last book and could be seen as a conclusion to a life fighting for social justice and a last will and testament. The opening words are, “We have a Social Gospel. We need a systematic theology large enough to match it and vital enough to back it.” The first response might be, “Do we?” It might have been better for Rauschenbusch and indeed for his legacy if he had taken the same road as Martin Luther King Jr. would later take, keeping his systematic ponderings from print.

Evangelicals were always going to take issue with him on a range of doctrinal points. They could take no issue with his Biblical mandate for social engagement, back up so well by his quoting of the prophets. Rauschenbusch wanted to minimize the importance of the Fall in our theology of sin. He pointed out that Jesus wasn’t interested in it. He argued that an emphasis on the Fall distracts from more recent contributions of evil. For him sin was not so much about some historical event in Eden but about rebellion against the Kingdom Of God.

This was bound to rattle the cages of conservative evangelicals causing them to look upon Rauschenbusch with suspicion and able then to dismiss him as a liberal. Beyond that there was a more serious weakness. Though Rauschenbusch did not dismiss the doctrine of original sin he felt it was overworked and had no time for original guilt. He did believe that original sin was transmitted like “faulty equipment” coming down to us through the reproductive life of the race. The biological nature of his philosophy here changes the impact of original sin. It is also linked to his view that human beings were evolving. This is again a sign of his context, living in a time when it was believed that evolution was moving in a positive way. Rauschenbusch has again been criticized as having a naïvely glowing view of human progress which Reinhold Neibuhr would rightfully draw back to what he felt was his inadequate theology of sin. Christopher Evans would try to show Rauschenbusch as being more balanced. While admitting Rauschenbusch was optimistic he was keen to see dual themes of social opportunity and social crisis.

It would be too simplistic to say that Walter Rauschenbusch’s strength was bringing theology down to what he experienced on the streets but where he weakened his argument was when he took what he experienced on the street and put it into his theology. Yet his need of A Theology For The Social Gospel led him to untangle some things in his theology that were not absolutely essential for the purposes of his main mission yet turned off an entire and most energetic wing of the Church for decades to come. Rauschenbusch could be charged with letting the evangelicals off the hook when he gave them enough rope to hang him as a liberal and therefore remain in their individualist theology and run from the cost of his prophetic punch.

Having said all of that when he writes, “The Church which was founded on democracy and brotherhood, had, in its higher levels, become an organization controlled by upper classes for parasitic ends, a religious duplicate of the coercive state, and a chief check on the advance of democracy and brotherhood,” you might wonder if he was prophetically describing the current United States administration. As many see the blend of globalized business interests and conservative right wing religious groups, bullying the legislation in Washington, Rauschenbusch’s challenge still rings out 100 years after his first book stirred the social activist soul of America.

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