A Theology for the Social Gospel by Walter Rauschenbusch
"A Theology for the Social Gospel," authored by Walter Rauschenbusch, presents a transformative vision of Christianity focused on social justice and ethical living. Rauschenbusch, who served as a pastor in a challenging New York City neighborhood, critiques traditional Christian teachings that prioritize individual salvation over collective welfare. He argues that sin primarily manifests as selfishness, which leads to societal injustices such as poverty, governmental oppression, and war. Rauschenbusch advocates for the Kingdom of God as a present reality, emphasizing that social structures must promote fraternity and cooperation among individuals.
He challenges the Church's historical alignment with the status quo, calling for a renewed commitment to service and love that transcends mere ritualistic practices. In his view, authentic Christian living involves tangible actions to address social issues, aligning with the ethical teachings of Jesus rather than focusing solely on personal penance. Rauschenbusch also critiques capitalism and endorses cooperative enterprises, arguing for the need to reform social institutions that perpetuate inequality. His work has influenced various movements for social reform, highlighting the importance of integrating faith with active social responsibility. This approach has resonated through the years, echoing in contemporary discussions on social justice within Christianity.
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A Theology for the Social Gospel by Walter Rauschenbusch
First published: 1917
Edition(s) used:A Theology for the Social Gospel. New York: Abingdon Press, 1945
Genre(s): Nonfiction
Subgenre(s): Theology
Core issue(s): Capitalism; church; ethics; love; poverty; social action
Overview
Walter Rauschenbusch held a pastorate in a rough part of New York City for eleven years and knew firsthand about the many varieties of social problems. Too often, according to Rauschenbusch, people strongly condemn activities such as drinking alcohol, dancing, playing cards, and going to the movies as sins but do not adequately condemn the impoverishment of peasants and industrial workers by “the parasitic classes of society.” The most glaringly sinful activity is war, so painfully evident in 1917 during World War I. Rauschenbusch is scornful of Christianity’s traditional emphasis on Original Sin and the fall of Adam and Eve rather than on Jesus and the prophets. To him, sin is selfishness, and selfishness is a major source of social evils, among them despotic government, war and militarism, landlordism, predatory industry, and finance.
In A Theology for the Social Gospel, Rauschenbusch argues that mainstream theology has wandered far from the social and ethical teachings of Jesus. “Individualistic theology” concentrates unduly on personal repentance and salvation:
The doctrine of the Kingdom of God was left undeveloped by individualistic theology and finally mislaid by it almost completely. . . . What a spectacle, that the original teaching of our Lord has become an incongruous element in so-called evangelical theology. . . .
Rauschenbusch’s ideal is the Kingdom of God, to which people can aspire in this life: “The institutions of life must be fundamentally fraternal and co-operative if they are to train men to love their fellow men as co-workers.” In this kingdom, human beings are all called to labor for the common good.
The sins of selfishness are preserved and transmitted by social organizations and institutions, customs, and habits. Rauschenbusch sees the Church as having degenerated into a force for evil in pre-Reformation times.
According to Rauschenbusch, salvation should involve a strengthened commitment to loving and serving others. He rejects the isolation of mystical religious experience—but acknowledges the importance of prayer and meditation as resources for renewal. Christ’s teachings focus on love, not as attitude or feeling but as the energetic and zestful participation in social life characterized by service and equality. While the Jewish priestly elite concentrated on rules and rituals, Jesus envisioned the Kingdom of God as loving interactions among all people, women as well as men, Gentiles as well as Jews.
Rauschenbusch condemns the punitive approach to criminal justice, advocating instead greater attention to teaching, discipline, and rehabilitation. He also speaks sharply against capitalism (particularly the modern corporation), preferring cooperatives as the chief form of productive enterprise. Born to German immigrant parents, he had studied in Germany and was strongly influenced by the religious and economic ideas prevalent there. Many of these ideas had migrated to the United States through people such as economist Richard T. Ely, a pillar of the Social Gospel movement. Rauschenbusch had also been strongly influenced by Henry George, by Edward Bellamy’s book Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888), and by British Christian socialism.
In A Theology for the Social Gospel, Rauschenbusch does not undertake to provide systematic analysis of social and economic problems or to outline a detailed agenda of political and social remedies. However, he is strongly critical of those aspects of theology that have strayed from the central social teachings of Jesus—in particular, the implication that one’s eternal salvation can be achieved by “faith.”
Many of Rauschenbusch’s goals were achieved over the ensuing century. The Catholic Church, which came in for much condemnation in his writings, became much more attentive to social and economic matters. Racial and gender equality advanced. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., acknowledged that he was influenced by Rauschenbusch. Socially concerned Christians were one of many powerful political forces helping bring about the creation of welfare-state programs in Europe and America. However, much of the improvement came through the process of economic growth, generated by the capitalistic institutions that he denigrated.
In Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Rauschenbusch presents in much more detail his conception of Jesus as an advocate of social justice and social reform. He calls attention to the radical social wing of the primitive Church, praising the epistle of James as a strong statement of that viewpoint. This emphasis was derailed by a growing preoccupation with the eternal life to come, along with pessimism about the possibility of improving life in the here and now. Praise for the ascetic ideal denied many of the comforts and consolations of earthly life. Although presented in a historical context, these issues were still of importance in the early twentieth century.
Rauschenbusch articulates an effective case for separation of church and state: An “established” church is bound to be a captive of the same social classes that control the state. Only if the church is a free agent can it effectively pressure the state to adopt measures of social reform.
Christianity and the Social Crisis spelled out in detail Rauschenbusch’s gloomy perspective on the capitalist economy of the early twentieth century. It reflected his distress at the conditions in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. The book ends with a passionate call for the Church to support socialism—a theme not evident in A Theology for the Social Gospel—which created a hail of public criticism of Rauschenbusch. One would not know from his exposition that real wages had increased significantly since the Civil War and that the favorable U.S. labor environment was attracting a million immigrants a year, immigrants who hoped that, after initial hardships, they would obtain a better life for themselves and their children.
By the time A Theology for the Social Gospel was published, the first Pure Food and Drug Act had been adopted, the Federal Trade Commission had been established, the income tax had become a permanent part of the financial system, the Clayton Act had begun protection for labor unions, and the United States was well on the way to authorizing voting by women. The spread of the Social Gospel certainly contributed to the reform atmosphere of the Progressive Era.
Christian Themes
Christian love, as expressed in the words and especially the actions of Jesus, is the foundation of Rauschenbusch’s approach. Matthew 25:31-46 presents the basis for Christian living by individuals and for the activities of the Church. This love undertakes to heal the sick, to provide food and clothing for the needy, to welcome strangers, to comfort widows and orphans, and to transmute war into peace.
Rauschenbusch traced his litany of social evils to selfishness. He felt that capitalist greed was at the base of poverty and the attendant evils of poor housing, bad sanitation, child labor, alcoholism, political corruption, and even war. These evils are directly the outcome of the actions of sinful institutions, especially business corporations. Rauschenbusch’s institutional focus anticipates the work of Walter Wink (The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium, 1998).
In conjunction with Saint Paul’s admonitions in 1 Corinthians 13, this view is also the basis for Rauschenbusch’s criticism of the Church—its failure to take the lead in combating the social problems he enumerated. He condemned asceticism, monasticism, mysticism, and excessive churchly preoccupation with ritual and dogma. His emphasis was on social action and only secondarily on the possibility that people might be experiencing sinful thoughts and feelings. Likewise, concerns for salvation and the afterlife were subordinate to opportunities and responsibilities to improve the social conditions experienced here and now. Rauschenbusch states that social action is needed to bring about the Kingdom of God: actions—not merely thoughts, feelings, and ritual observances—and working in fraternal collaboration with others.
Rauschenbusch presents an image of Jesus that stresses his life as a process of growth and discovery. He was not merely acting out a script that was presented to him early in life. The social concerns that he articulated were at the center of early church life, until the Church was compromised by its union with political power.
Sources for Further Study
Evans, Christopher Hodge. The Kingdom Is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004. While not neglecting personal matters (his relation with his father, his affinity to matters German) the book stresses the social as well as theological context of Rauschenbusch’s work.
Fishburn, Janet. “Walter Rauschenbusch and ’The Woman Movement’: A Gender Analysis.” In Gender and the Social Gospel, edited by Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards and Carolyn De Swarte Gifford. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. Rauschenbusch felt strongly that a woman’s place was in the home as wife and mother.
Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York: Macmillan, 1907. Detailed evidence on the social emphasis of the Bible and the early church; describes how the Church deviated from this. Develops his socialist perspective in detail.
Smucker, Donovan E. The Origins of Walter Rauschenbusch’s Social Ethics. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994. Emphasizes influences relating to pietism, Anabaptist sectarianism, social and religious liberalism, and Christian socialist transformationism.