Walter Rauschenbusch

Minister

  • Born: October 4, 1861
  • Birthplace: Rochester, New York
  • Died: July 25, 1918
  • Place of death: Rochester, New York

American religious leader

Moving away from individualism, Rauschenbusch formulated a social gospel that influenced church and society to accept responsibility for social and economic injustice and to institute social reform.

Areas of achievement Religion and theology, social reform

Early Life

Walter Rauschenbusch (RAH-shuhn-buhsh) was the son of German immigrant August Rauschenbusch, who came from a Lutheran background but became an Orthodox Baptist minister. In 1865, Rauschenbusch traveled with his mother and two sisters to Germany, where his father joined them in 1868. He attended public school there, but when the family returned to New York in 1869, he attended a private school and the Free Academy, both in Rochester.

From 1870 to 1879, Rauschenbusch enjoyed summer farmwork in Pennsylvania. The farmer who employed him was kind and the work pleasant. At a farm in New York, however, he experienced at first hand unfair labor practices. The farmer kept him at hard work for long hours, feeding and paying him very little. This influenced his later thoughts on economic injustice.

Healthy and bright, Rauschenbusch was a mischievous boy but eager to work and learn. His mother encouraged in him a sense of humor, courtesy, an appreciation of beauty, and a love of nature. Rauschenbusch was taught to attend Sunday school and church and to read the Bible and pray, but the family religion did not include an interest in social issues. At the age of seventeen, he underwent a spiritual awakening and had a personal experience with God.

After his conversion and baptism, he concluded work at the Free Academy. From 1879 to 1883, he studied and traveled in Europe. He completed courses at the Evangelical Gymnasium of Gütersloh and the University of Berlin. Although urged to enter other work, he continued to move toward the ministry.

When he returned home, he studied at the University of Rochester and Rochester Theological Seminary from 1883 until 1886. During this time, another spiritual experience inspired him to resolve to live entirely by the spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ.

During the summer of 1884, Rauschenbusch pastored a German Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He found a small, neglected congregation with internal disharmony and a poor reputation with outsiders. Shy and sensitive but upright and determined, he began to raise the spiritual standards of the congregation. When he left at summer’s end, he had settled disputes, united members, and nearly doubled the congregation.

When he completed his seminary studies, Rauschenbusch was six feet tall with a mustache, sideburns, and hazel eyes that sparkled with humor. His close friends were of exceptional character and ability. He applied for the mission field with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society but was turned down, apparently because of his liberal views concerning the Old Testament.

Life’s Work

When the Second German Baptist Church in New York City asked Rauschenbusch to be their pastor, he accepted and began work on June 1, 1886. The church, located in a tough West Side neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen, was filled with discouragement and need.

At the start, he planned to preach and pastor, bringing individuals to salvation and then nurturing their faith. He soon realized, however, that Christians were unsafe in the city because of oppressive social conditions. In his church families, he saw the effects of poverty, unemployment, and malnutrition. Disease and crime were widespread in the overcrowded slum tenements. As he developed a plan of social action, he became convinced that capitalism was causing the injustice. He began to see Christian socialism as a cure for economic injustice.

Also, he recognized that one’s acceptance of Christ gave one inner strength but did not change the unfair political and economic system that was ruining families. His gospel needed to expand to provide for the redemption of society. In his search for a principle to encompass the salvation of individuals and society, he studied the writings of economists, political activists, socialists, and other social reformers. He also read Jesus’ teachings and the Old Testament Book of Amos.

Long hours in study and church work weakened his health, and he became ill with Russian influenza in 1888. Unwilling to neglect his parishioners, he returned to work too soon and a relapse left him unable to hear. Although his deafness caused him suffering and loneliness, he did not allow it to ruin his friendships or his work. In three years, the church membership increased from 143 to 213 and a new building was erected.

While developing his ideas of social reform, Rauschenbusch began to write for newspapers and journals. In 1889, he helped found For the Right, a monthly paper for working people that discussed their questions in terms of Christian socialism.

When the last issue was published in March, 1891, Rauschenbusch sailed for Europe. While exploring social and economic conditions in Europe, he hoped to discover new ways to serve the poor. He investigated the Salvation Army but concluded that it was treating symptoms of poverty, while he wanted to eliminate the cause.

While in Germany, Rauschenbusch formulated his idea of the Kingdom of God, the organization of society in obedience to God’s will. The individual is converted and receives the power and responsibility to participate in the redemption of society. Worldwide missions would extend the Kingdom to every institution and group, and society would move progressively toward unity. God’s will justice and righteousness would be done on earth as in Heaven. He returned home in 1891 and formed the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, whose members were committed to obeying the ethics of Jesus and spreading the spirit of Christ throughout the political, industrial, social, and scientific life of society.

At a conference of German Baptists, Rauschenbusch met Pauline Rother, a Milwaukee schoolteacher, and married her on April 12, 1893. It was a happy marriage, and Pauline became an active partner in his ministry at the New York church. Intelligent and well educated, she shared his views on Christianity and social reform. Her ability to communicate with her husband enabled her to help him in conversations and meetings. The couple had five children, and Rauschenbusch was devoted to his family.

As Rauschenbusch continued his difficult but successful work with the church in New York, he was becoming well known as an activist and as a speaker on social reform. He also participated in the Baptist Congress, a liberal forum for Baptist leaders.

In 1897, Rauschenbusch left the pastorate to teach in the German Department of Rochester Theological Seminary. He taught German Americans to pastor the German Baptist churches, but under him many students became too liberal for the churches. Five years later, he became a professor of church history and continued teaching there until his death in 1918.

In 1907, Rauschenbusch gave Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) to a publisher and sailed for Europe. When he returned, he was famous, in great demand for sermons and lectures. His book explored the biblical history of social ethics, described the need for reform, and urged Christians to promote social justice.

Personal prayer was the source of Rauschenbusch’s vitality, and that part of his spiritual life is revealed in his book For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening (1910). It includes a collection of prayers written for various situations and an essay on the Lord’s Prayer. Christianizing the Social Order (1912) gives a detailed and systematic explanation of his views on social problems and their relationship to Christianity. A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) was written to provide a theological and intellectual basis for the social gospel. Not a substitute for the individual gospel, the social gospel expands it to include the good news of redemption for society.

The world was at war when Rauschenbusch finished his last book, and he knew that there could be no immediate regeneration of society. Seriously ill and saddened by the war, he died on July 25, 1918.

Significance

Working across denominational lines, Rauschenbusch influenced and changed the thinking of American Protestantism. He moved Christianity away from individualism and into the area of social consciousness. Churches could no longer ignore the poverty and injustice around them but were made aware of their responsibility to change oppressive social and economic conditions. His theory of social ministry became the basis for the social creeds adopted by major Protestant denominations.

Rauschenbusch and his writings were instrumental in the formation of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The organization has given leadership to the Christian movement and worked for unity, social justice, and international goodwill. The Federal Council was the forerunner of the National Council of Churches.

The direction of the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Young Women’s Christian Association was also influenced by Rauschenbusch’s teachings. He provided religious justification for their outreach to humanity and encouraged the provision of a Christian social environment.

By speaking and writing of the oppressive conditions in the cities and fighting for reform, Rauschenbusch made the public aware of the needs of the poor. The labor movement, public park movement, and Christian socialism were all influenced by his teachings. After his first book was published, he was accepted as the chief spokesperson for the American Social Gospel movement. His views on social change have become a part of American Christianity and social service.

Bibliography

Bowman, Matthew. “Sin, Spirituality, and Primitivism: The Theologies of the American Social Gospel, 1885-1917.” Religion and American Culture 17, no. 1 (Winter, 2007): 95-126. Examines the Social Gospel movement in the United States, focusing on Rauschenbusch’s religious ideas and the work he and other social gospelers performed to alleviate labor unrest, monopolies, and other social problems.

Evans, Christopher H. The Kingdom Is Always, but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2004. Charts Rauschenbusch’s life and career within the context of the American Progressive movement and assesses his impact on the nation’s religious and intellectual history.

Handy, Robert T., ed. The Social Gospel in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. Biographical sketches and selected writings of three prominent leaders of the Social Gospel movement: Washington Gladden, Richard T. Ely, and Walter Rauschenbusch. Depicts the growth and development of the social gospel.

Hopkins, Charles Howard. The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism: 1865-1915. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940. The relationship between Christianity and society’s moral and ethical problems is explored in this comprehensive chronicle of the Social Gospel movement. Describes how the industrial revolution, social injustice, and an interest in reform led to the theology of the social gospel.

Macfarland, Charles S. Christian Unity in the Making. New York: The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 1948. Traces the development of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America from the first attempts to unify the denominations to the establishment of the organization in 1908 and includes its history through 1930. Details the work and purpose of the council and its progress in working with various denominations and interdenominational groups.

Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York: Macmillan, 1907. First of a series of major works that contributed to a social awakening and the humanization of theology in America. Examines the social ethics of the Old Testament and Jesus’ teachings. Describes the need for reform and offers suggestions for change.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Christianizing the Social Order. New York: Macmillan, 1912. Most complete and systematic explanation of Rauschenbusch’s position. Specifically discusses social problems and changes needed in religion and the economic system to resolve them.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. A Rauschenbusch Reader. Edited by Benson Y. Landis. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957. Compilation of selected Rauschenbusch writings, abridged but including main points. Preceding each chapter, Landis remarks on then-prevailing issues and describes the chapter selection.

Sharpe, Dores Robinson. Walter Rauschenbusch. New York: Macmillan, 1942. Comprehensive biography by his secretary and longtime friend. Sharpe portrays Rauschenbusch as a scholar, a loving husband and father, a pastor who cared deeply for his struggling parishioners, and a creative thinker who penned the theology of a social gospel. Summarizes and comments on Rauschenbusch’s most important writings.

White, Ronald C., and C. Howard Hopkins. The Social Gospel. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976. Restatement of the social gospel and expansion of its definition and history, including criticisms, personalities, and lasting effects. Examines the influence of the Social Gospel movement on issues such as human rights, social injustice, ecumenism, and social action.

1941-1970: August 22, 1948: World Council of Churches Is Formed; November 29, 1950: National Council of Churches Is Formed; May, 1955-May, 1956: Presbyterian and Methodist Churches Approve Ordination of Women; February 24, 1961: National Council of Churches Supports Birth Control.