Today in Church History

On 25 July 1918, Walter Rauschenbusch, Baptist pastor and theologian of the Social Gospel, died. His books, including Christianity and the Social Crisis and The Social Principles of Jesus, influenced many—among them Martin Luther King, Jr., who observed that "Rauschenbusch gave to American Protestantism a sense of social responsibility that it should never lose.

Paul Raushenbush on the Social Gospel

Thanks to Michael Westmoreland-White for pointing out this informative article by Paul Raushenbush on "My Great-Grandfather and the Social Gospel."

I recently sent Brian McLaren an e-mail introducing myself as the great-grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch. Brian is a pastor, the bestselling author of, among other books, "A New Kind of Christian," and a leader in the Emergent Church, one of today’s most vibrant Christian movements.

I had just edited the 100th anniversary edition of Rauschenbusch’s first book, "Christianity and the Social Crisis" (with the updated title, "Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century"), and I was curious to see what Brian thought of Rauschenbusch. I knew that the Emergent Church shared some of my great-grandfather’s concerns, blending evangelical devotion to Jesus while preaching an active response to social questions of the day. But the intensity of Brian’s response caught me off guard.

"Like a lot of people from Evangelical backgrounds," Brian wrote, "in my childhood and youth I was taught that the "social gospel" was nothing but evil. I heard it a thousand times in sermons...Now, of course, I think this kind of anti-justice, privatized-gospel propaganda is evil!"

Wow.

What strikes me about Brian’s faith journey is how it mirrors mine in reverse.

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