|
Winner of First Annual Rauschenbusch Center Seminarian Award Dare We Be Christians Today?
By Rachel McGuire, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School Walter Rauschenbusch did not think small. He imagined a thorough transformation of all Christianity, perhaps all the world. I am sure there are those who thought he was crazy, or at the very least, a little over-optimistic. I can hear them now. "Oh Walter, people are not ready for these ideas." "Can't you see that most people don't understand what you are talking about? They just want to go to church on Sunday and be done with it." "You are wasting your time and effort. People are set in their ways." "This kingdom of God stuff is all well and good but you cannot expect the church to change." "Set your sights a little lower so you are not disappointed." But he would not be deterred. Rauschenbusch's experience ministering in Hell's Kitchen revealed to him that the individualistic drive for personal salvation that had served throughout history as the dominant organizing principle for Christian doctrine and theological reflection was inadequate in the face of modern day realities. Perhaps it always had been. Rauschenbusch was unsatisfied with empty confession and faith claims confined to Sunday mornings. He struggled to build a theology that pushed our faith claims into every aspect of our everyday lives. He was deadly serious about radical transformation of the social order, and believed the gospel was the methodology that could make this happen. Rauschenbusch grew up and undertook his studies moving back and forth between Rochester and Germany. But it was during a summer pastorate in Louisville, Kentucky in 1884 that he began to be moved by the impact of direct ministry. He says at this time: It is now no longer my fond hope to be a learned theologian and write big books. I want to be a pastor, powerful with men, preaching to them Christ as the man in whom their affections and energies can find the satisfaction for which mankind is groaning. And if I ever do become anything but a pastor, you may believe that I have sunk to a lower ideal or that there was a very unmistakable duty in that direction. [1] After seminary, he went to New York City for eleven years to serve the Second German Church in an area known as Hell's Kitchen. It is here that his heart for improving the human condition and his understanding of the systemic character of suffering really took shape. He then, of course, went on to do just as he said he would not, that is to teach, write books and function in an academic arena for the majority of his life. I would argue that this life direction did in fact come from an "un-mistakable duty in that direction." With his gift for conceptualizing the problems facing society, his passion for drawing Christianity back to its root claims, his theological proficiency, and his artistry with language, I have no doubt that in his teaching and writing he was engaged directly in the work God called him to do. Yet it was through his direct service to the poor and suffering in Hell's Kitchen - in this touch - this closeness of his heart to the hearts of women, men and children that so many in his day (and today) would write off as hopeless - that Rauschenbusch discovered the great treasure buried at the heart of Christ's teaching. That which the best trained minds for nearly two millennia pursued with a passion. And it was not hard to find. Jesus' hints at its location are none too subtle. Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. [2] So in a literal following of Jesus' teaching, Rauschenbusch did find what was promised. It was given to Rauschenbusch to feel in his bones what Jesus meant when he talked about the kingdom of God. An enigma for most of us, Jesus' kingdom of God became a living reality for Rauschenbusch. A reality that was in some manner not yet, but still very much already present. A reality that could only be revealed, and in such revelation, realized, in loving contact between human beings, particularly loving contact with human beings in abject need of what it takes to survive and thrive in God's creation. Such need certainly includes food, shelter, clothing, and healthcare. But must also address the basic human longing for dignity, respect, and opportunities to grow in body, heart, and mind. Rauschenbusch makes clear that the kingdom of God is not to be confused with the church. He claims that the early church's focus on parousia (second coming), Augustine's equating of kingdom and church in De Civitae Dei, and the Reformation focus on the eschatological aspect of the kingdom, carried our theological notion of the kingdom far away from Jesus' original intent. [3] He says: "The atrophy of that idea which had occupied the chief place in the mind of Jesus, necessarily affected the conception of Christianity, the life of the church, the progress of humanity, and the structure of theology." [4] In so doing, according to Rauschenbusch, we lost Jesus' ethical teachings; we became more preoccupied with "fellowship for worship" than with a "fellowship of righteousness"; the church and its political nature became a higher good than the kingdom; sacred and secular became distinct, with democracy and social justice efforts losing their religious backing; church became a kind of gatekeeper for salvation; the revolutionary character of Christianity faded; and we lost our most inspirational theological basis for existence and our prophetic edge. [5] Shifting the Focus From Personal Sin and Salvation In the discovery of the kingdom, Rauschenbusch realized the error of focusing narrowly and moralistically on one's personal behavior as a way of finding God. Like a parent teaching a teenager to drive a car for the first time, he encouraged us to lift our eyes off the hood, and gaze out upon the road ahead. To raise our sights from our own small moral universe to the broader moral fabric that encompasses the complex ways that we are interconnected with one another. This is not to say that personal sin is not a problem, but as with the young driver it is not productive for us to spend all our time staring at the hood of the car, that is, fix our attention on our personal sin in isolation from the world at large. In fact, doing so, has caused us to crash society into a tree. Brazilian theologian Dr. Ivone Gebara helps shed light on this change of focus and its benefits. She challenges us to reconsider our notions of sin and evil by exploring a scene written by novelist Kamala Markandaya: Ruku notices that Ira, her daughter, offers her body (sex) in secret for money in order to save the life of her little brother dying of hunger: 'I saw her go out in the dusk, sari tightly wrapped about her. Saw her walk to the town, along the narrow lane which ran past the tannery, following it to where it broadened with beedi shops along one side and tawdry stalls on the other, where men with bold eyes lounged smoking or drinking from frothing toddy pots.' [6] Gebara selects this scene because it evades our efforts to assign blame. It evades our attempts to locate the source of evil within an individual human being, and thereby correct it via punishment or eradication. Gebara says of the story, "A kind of force moves us, touches us, and obliges us to go beyond the limits life imposes on us." [7] Is Ruku's decision to enter prostitution moral or immoral? To whom shall we assign the blame for her brother's starvation? Where can we find the evil that restricts a women's choice to prostitution as the only means of survival? In whom is the evil that is responsible for the state of spiritual deprivation that drives the consumers of the prostitution industry? To wrestle with this from the perspective of personal sin and salvation is to attempt to drive while staring at the hood of the car. We are only able to properly direct our vehicle in the right paths, when we understand its place in relationship to what is around us. We must look up and see the other vehicles, and road signs, and trees. Much the same way, Gebara and Rauschenbusch discovered that they could only chart their own moral courses effectively when their eyes were lifted up and focused on their relationship to others, particularly the poor. Bearing the Vision of God's Kingdom on Earth After he left Hell's Kitchen, the reality of the kingdom came fully home to Rauschenbusch. And then he saw that every dimension of Christian doctrine and theology had become distorted by our inward moralistic focus. Thus he embarked on an effort, and an ambitious effort it was, to place the kingdom of God on earth (with its systemic view of sin) at the center of Christian faith, and to re-orient all essential Christian teachings around it. He writes: To those whose minds live in the social gospel, the kingdom of God is a dear truth, the marrow of the gospel, just as the incarnation was to Athanasius, justification by faith alone to Luther, and the sovereignty of God to Jonathan Edwards. It was just as dear to Jesus. He too lived in it, and from it looked out at the world and the work he had to do. [8] Rauschenbusch saw this relatedness to one another, the kingdom of God, as the angle from which to view the world and one's work as a Christian. And Rauschenbusch's mind did truly live in the social gospel. For him, the kingdom was ever on the verge, ready to break through at any moment. He could feel its presence pressing upon the edges of our reality, held back only by our stubborn choice not to love. He could hear the dams of oppression, hatred, and militarism shifting and cracking under the weight of humanity's potential. He knew this human potential was breaking free and that "justice [would] roll down like mighty waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." [9] God gave it to Rauschenbusch to hold the intensity of the world's transformation in his heart. To see it and feel it in everything he touched. To know its truth. What a state of joy! What a source of un-ending disappointment and grief! Imagining what it must be like to bear this vision, perhaps, we can forgive his enthusiasm (even exaggeration) of the signs of the kingdom around him in the American context. For instance: "The swiftness of evolution in our own country proves the immense latent perfectibility in human nature." [10] or "The spread of democracy has brought a great softening of the horrors of criminal law and it will yet bring us a great lessening of militarism." [11] Today, when our country has been co-opted by forces that would make our sole reason for being, violence, war, and global economic exploitation, Rauschenbusch's words sound empty and hollow. And he felt this himself through the course of his life as he experienced the overwhelming capacity of human beings to reject love and submit to fear and evil. Yet in his disappointment and grief for our human failings, he never gave up on his certainty that the social gospel was the route to the kingdom. In fact its necessity became more and more urgent. And relevant not just domestically, but internationally. In regards to World War I he says: Before the War the social gospel dealt with social classes: today it is being translated into international terms. The ultimate cause of the war was the same lust for easy and unearned gain which has created the internal social evils under which every nation has suffered. The social problem and the war problem are fundamentally one problem, and the social gospel faces both. [12] How much truer this statement is today, when in our "lust for easy and unearned gain" we calculate the cost of human lives lost in war against the financial spreadsheets of our mega-corporations. And at the end of the day, ill-gotten profit consistently comes out on top. So the social gospel is not only relevant today, one wonders if we have ever given it a try. The President of the United States goes to church on Sunday and declares murder of sacred human beings, created in the image of God, all around the world on Monday. And we stand idly by, even try to justify it. One wonders if we even have the slightest idea what Christianity is asking of us. We've developed an elaborate rhetoric of Christianity, but have we actually understood the concrete demands that Christianity makes upon us? Christianity is certainly interesting intellectually, but it is not at root an intellectual pursuit. It is a full contact sport. We lay our bodies down before the forces of evil, naked and defenseless but for love. Let's not gloss this over. This is what Christ was talking about, and what Christ did. So like Rauschenbusch we are bent but not broken by the long hard journey to the fulfillment of the kingdom. A kingdom which Rauschenbusch acknowledges is always on the horizon, never fully here: We shall never have a perfect social life, yet we must seek it in faith. We shall never abolish suffering. There will always be death and the empty chair and heart. There will always be the agony of love unreturned . . . The strong will always have the impulse to exert their strength, and no system can be devised which can keep them from crowding and jostling the weaker. Increased social refinement will bring increased sensitiveness to pain . . . At best there is always but an approximation to a perfect social order. The kingdom of God is always but coming. [13] Yet this outlook in no way diminishes his irrepressible hope in the kingdom. As he sinks into lament over the pain and struggle and seeming futility of the human condition, joy suddenly bubbles up and bursts forth: And sometimes the hot hope surges up that perhaps the long and slow climb may be ending . . . Last May a miracle happened. At the beginning of the week the fruit trees bore brown and greenish buds. At the end of the week they were robed in bridal garments of blossom. But for weeks and months the sap had been rising and distending the cells and maturing the tissues which were half ready in the fall before. The swift unfolding was the culmination of a long process. Perhaps these nineteen centuries of Christian influence have been a long preliminary stage of growth, and now the flower and the fruit are almost here. If at this juncture we can rally sufficient religious faith and moral strength to snap the bonds of evil and turn the present unparalleled economic and intellectual resources of humanity to the harmonious development of a true social life, the generations unborn will mark this as a great day of the Lord for which the ages waited, and count us blessed for sharing in the apostolate that proclaimed it. [14] Perhaps we can find a way to foster this kind of resilience in our own beings. Perhaps we can recognize that the pain and destruction we visit upon one another, makes the promise of the social gospel that much more compelling. Our lament in our failings is a testament to our belief in our potential. We cannot separate our grief from our joy. For if creation did not hold glorious potential then what would it be that we are lamenting? What is this possibility that we feel so deeply in our hearts that we so mourn its loss? Or worse, are so afraid of experiencing this loss (and its corresponding joy) that we numb ourselves with workaholism, TV, and Super-WalMart? I stand with Rauschenbusch in his vision for the potential of humanity and the means by which we might embark on the path towards that potential. I believe the social gospel is a redundant term, that is, the social gospel is the gospel. It was the answer to the oppression of the Roman Empire in Jesus' and Paul's time. It was the answer of the Anabaptists to the political battling between the pope and those 'protesting' in the Reformation. It was the driving force behind the ending of slavery and mission of the black church as a sacred and secular, read social, institution. It was the powerful force underneath 20th century movements to become free of political and racial oppression, particularly the Civil Rights movement. And it is the only way out of the global oppression of human potential and unprecedented economic imperialism (with its mass human suffering and environmental destruction) being wrought by the United States today. So in reflecting on the transformative power of the social gospel and its potential to heal our broken world, we must ask, why have we not embraced its tenets? As Rauschenbusch himself learned over the course of his life, there are significant obstacles to the realization of his vision. These obstacles persist today. Overcoming Obstacles to Social Transformation I submit that a persistent negative Christian anthropology emerging from the church, culminating in the Reformation era notion of depravity, is the most significant barrier to the realization of the social gospel. Given the human propensity to reject love and succumb to evil, it is not surprising that theologians seek out explanations up to and including the hopeless sinfulness of humanity. Unfortunately over time this line of thinking has developed into an overly simplistic duality that disparages the essential nature of human beings in equal measure to the power and glory that it gives to God. In practice, the concept of depravity is a disempowering notion that leads one to helplessly await God's grace while committing all manner of violence against one's self and one's neighbor. It discourages us from experiencing the image of God in ourselves and one another, making us blind to the sacred seed within. And it discourages our God-given impetus to liberate one another. For if we think humanity incapable of good - as uncontrollably sinful - what on earth would we be liberating? By contrast, when we consider Jesus' perspective on humanity, we find a profoundly empowering message. He was not suggesting we wait idly in the hope that someday God will whisk us away. He says: "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father." [15] Certainly Luther's ideas of justification by faith and the relationship grace and works are critically important and supported in this passage. This passage clearly indicates that works are meaningless unless fueled by God's grace and undertaken in faith. But Jesus does not thereby dualistically conclude that we are hopeless creatures. Quite the opposite. He calls us to a powerful role as co-creators of the kingdom. He calls us his own sisters and brothers capable of living according to his example. He calls us to manifest our best God-given nature in defiance of our weakness for sin with the gift of God's grace. Paul also taught a message of human potential and empowerment in the early church communities. So much so, that those formerly confined by social norms, such as women, took on powerful leadership roles guiding these budding communities of faith. While Rauschenbusch levies substantial complaints about Paul's spiritualization of Christianity - the otherworldliness of his theology - he finds worth in Paul's egalitarianism and estimation of human capability: At Corinth the social unrest seized the women. They felt the hot promptings of the Spirit in their souls just like the men, and rose to prophecy . . . They felt the emancipating sense of equality and the glad sweep of the new brotherhood in the meeting and put off the veil, which the lustfulness of men and long standing social inferiority had compelled women to wear in the presence of strangers . . . Paul in one of his bold, prophetic strains asserted that in Christ all the old distinctions of race and social standing would disappear, including the difference between man and woman. [16] Paul, like Rauschenbusch, tells us that we are each given gifts to manifest and the purpose of these gifts is to uplift our neighbors. While Paul acknowledges the frequent wickedness of humanity he places our God-given potential at a higher level. Overcoming our weakness, with the grace of God, and manifesting our true God-given nature for the benefit of others is our reason for being. I submit that it is impossible to live out the radical message of liberation central to early Christianity, and revived in the Social Gospel, with the negative anthropology that dominates mainline Christian thinking. In fact this insistence on a negative anthropology (and the silencing as heretics all who explicitly attempt to revive an alternative) could be perceived as a calculated effort on the part of status quo institutions to suppress the revolutionary consequences of all human creatures realizing their own value and power. Erich Fromm supports this idea: The Reformation is one root of the idea of human freedom and autonomy as it is practiced in modern democracy. However, while this aspect is stressed . . . its other aspect - its emphasis on the wickedness of human nature, the insignificance and powerlessness of the individual, and the necessity of an individual to subordinate himself to a power outside of himself - is neglected. The idea of the unworthiness of the individual, his fundamental inability to rely upon himself and his need to submit, is also the main theme of Hitler's ideology, which, however, lacks the emphasis on freedom and moral principles, which was inherent in Protestantism. [17] Even social justice movements that did not explicitly reject dominant anthropological teachings, subtly and not so subtly shifted their focus away from them. This shift in perception about humanity can be found in Anabaptist thinking, which is known to have influenced Rauschenbusch's theology. [18] During the Reformation Anabaptists spent little time documenting theology. Yet retrospective efforts to articulate their belief structure indicate a very different anthropological stance than the mainline Protestant position. Robert Friedmann tells us: "Were man's plight so hopelessly fated as described, then all the endeavor of following Christ (discipleship) would be meaningless and futile." [19] Friedmann quotes Balthasar Hubmaier saying: "The image of God is not altogether erased in us." And Friedmann again: Although we are sinners, "through divine grace the freedom of man has been restored, even if imperfectly. If we surrender ourselves to God in childlike obedience, then we are free and able to do God's will, and thus become disciples of Christ . . . This freedom, to be sure, burdens man with full responsibility for his acts. Yet it must never be confused with Pelagianism, the alleged moral freedom of natural man." [20] Rauschenbusch, like Jesus and the Anabaptists, does not create a duality out of works and grace. But he calls us to take full responsibility as creative and powerful creatures, capable of both love and destruction, responsible for the consequences of our choices, personally and systemically. All the while acknowledging the full power of God, and the futility of our efforts toward the kingdom separate from grace. The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s also benefited from the revolutionary potential of restoring a belief in human value. The famous slogans "Black Power" and "Black is Beautiful" speak to the revival of dignity and power to a people who had been kept in bondage by the societal lie that they were not valuable as human beings. On the last day of his life, speaking at a garbage worker's strike in Memphis Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated: You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor... let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. [21] So I argue that there is a relationship between rejecting negative anthropological concepts and successfully embracing social change. As such our current dim view of human beings, both in sacred and secular realms, is a significant obstacle to the realization of Rauschenbusch's vision for the social gospel. If we want the tenets of the social gospel to take hold, we might start by thinking, feeling, teaching, and preaching the inherent worth and potential of humanity. A related obstacle to the realization of the Social Gospel today is a persistent tribalism. At a recent lecture, Methodist Bishop Joseph Sprague made the assertion that "in God's eyes, all wars are civil wars." The Biblical story from the beginning to end challenges the narrow conceptions of "self" and "other" present in each age and context - from the revelation of Yahweh as the God of love and justice who transcends the local warring deities of the Ancient Near East, to Jesus Christ who heals a Canaanite woman, dines with prostitutes and tax collectors, and advocates the Samaritan as neighbor, to Paul who calls all (Jew and Greek, man and woman, slave and free) to be equally liberated into Jesus Christ. The trajectory carries us in stages from the concept of "friend and enemy" to the reality of a single human family. Yet we struggle to put an end to the fruitless habit of placing some people in a friendly camp and others in a foreign camp. The result of such tendencies is to think of some lives as precious and others as expendable. Certainly we would not consider an attack on Britain with the same blithe attitude as an attack on Iraq. This mental framework where some people retain the status of "other" is facilitated by a technological means of warfare which distances us from feeling and touching the people we maim and kill. We do not have to experience face to face the consequences of our evil choices. We do not have to face the destruction of God's sacred children up close. And this "othering" is not restricted to people from distant lands. We maintain an underclass, out of sight, out of touch, in our own backyards. In New York, right on the borders of Rochester, migrant farm workers are subjected to work conditions bordering on slavery. In fact this summer there was a slavery indictment. [22] The result of our fear of this ever shifting "other" is the need for constant vigilance. We must make sure that we are in the dominant position against the other. And as we fuel our own fear, we begin to see danger everywhere. Such is the case in these fear-filled days with the dismantling of our sacred freedoms and rights as we undertake an unprecedented expenditure of energy and money on surveillance internationally and internally. We must police the "other" vigorously. Perhaps even pre-emptively strike the other, based on our escalating fear of what the "other" might do. Rauschenbusch speaks of this trend in society: Every proposed increase in police force and military organization is a challenge and accusation against those institutions of society which ought to create social solidarity. If ever our country draws toward its ruin, it will bristle with efficient arsenals and hired fighters. [23] A few years ago I had the good fortune to meet a woman who had started an innovative school for the homeless in a struggling urban neighborhood. Someone in our group asked her whether she was scared to walk to her job every morning. She confidently said no. Then she explained that she had come to know everyone on the streets along her daily path. She knew the moms and the children. She knew the young men and women. She knew the retirees. She knew the drug-dealers, prostitutes, and gang members. She knew the shop-keepers and the homeless. When she walked down the street, people came from all directions to greet her. She knew that if ever anyone attempted to harm her, she was surrounded with a web of trust and protection. Far, far safer than if she walked down the street with a gun in her pocket. So she consciously crossed the boundaries between "self" and "other." She allowed herself to experience the humanity of those whom she was taught to fear. Allowed herself to touch the untouchable. And she gained her security. Let's imagine for a moment we apply this model to United States foreign policy? Imagine that rather than shore up our defenses in fear, we reach out in hope and love and touch our neighbors. Listen to their stories. Greet them as sisters and brothers. Is it possible that this could lead to a more secure nation? So I argue that a significant obstacle to the realization of the vision of the Social Gospel is a tribalistic fear of the "other." As such, we are called in our lives to reach across boundaries and to touch one another's experience. It does not mean that we have to agree with our neighbor, or even like our neighbor, but that we have to listen to our neighbor and acknowledge her right to exist and to thrive as equal to our own. Perhaps, the greatest criticism one could level against Rauschenbusch is that he did not realize how unbelievably resistant human beings are to love. How afraid and closed and protective we are. How afraid of life we are. It turns out that bringing about the social change requires a greater degree of organizational effort than Rauschenbusch communicates in his writings. It does not just come about on its own, but it requires an aggressive, albeit loving, campaign against those that would maintain the status quo. Steve Chase claims that we cannot affect the social change required without militancy: By "militancy" I don't mean blind rage or violence. The world has more than enough of both already. I'm talking about loving something so much that you are willing to organize your community and stop the forces that threaten it. Gandhi was a great militant. He tried to melt the hearts of his British opponents, but when most of their hearts didn't melt, he organized a mass nonviolent resistance campaign that pushed them out of power whether they wanted to abdicate or not. Gandhi wasn't willing to wait around until all the British imperialists changed their minds about colonialism being a good thing. [24] While I believe that it is possible for those that hold power to be so moved by God's love and the love of their fellow human being to relinquish that power, I also recognize that it is a rare occurrence. In the meantime, we need to struggle and agitate now to stop the suffering. We have learned since Rauschenbusch's day that the vision of the social gospel needs to take shape in highly disciplined and organized efforts to undermine the forces that resist love and justice. This is in no way to underestimate the wonderful legacy of Rauschenbusch. While he may have been somewhat lacking in the means to make his dream a reality, he gave us the beautiful gift of his vision of the kingdom of God and his love for humanity. And that vision is an important beginning. For if we cannot visualize it, we cannot achieve it. Conclusion This gift of Rauschenbusch's theology of the social gospel comes to us in the context of war and myriad other ways humanity thwarted his hopes. And it is a richer gift for this struggle, because we are able to witness the force of his commitment amidst these failings. As we are faced with the realities wrought by the human choice not to love, it is a blessing of our Creator to be led in the paths of real persons who have gone before us. Persons whose faith, like ours, is rattled by their own suffering and the suffering of others. Persons who struggle with their Christian commitments and on many days cannot muster the hope and energy so needed by our world. Persons who at times fall into grave doubt about human potential. Yet, who, on the balance, amidst the chaotic day-to-day effort to live, hold onto the precious seed that is the vision of the kingdom. Who stop and consider the one life they have to give and chose to give it to the way of love. Rauschenbusch's story is a love story. A love story between him and the world. He says: Selfishness always looks safe; love always looks like an enormous risk. But many a man has found that when all his other securities had depreciated, love still pays dividends. Those who are too timid to embark in some venture of love are finally left on the desert shore of a life without interest or hope. We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in the full glow of love for others. Love establishes the fullest intellectual contact with the world about us. It has a passionate desire for full comprehension, whereas selfishness loses interest as soon as it has made the other serve its ends. To understand things and people we must love them. [25] He could not be talked out of the world's beauty and potential. And as is the case with all love stories, it encompasses the heights of joy and the depths of grief. Everyday, like babies dashed upon the rock [26], the world dashes our most precious hopes for an end to the destruction that human beings visit upon one another. Oppression, exploitation of people and the earth, poverty and violence appear to be an endless reality. And in this environment the question remains as relevant as ever: dare we be Christians? Here at the seminary in Rochester, Rauschenbusch's old stomping grounds, Dr. Melanie May, theologian and professor, communicates her struggle with this question: I have wrestled with a choice: to be preoccupied by the terms set by a terrorist culture or to cut my self and my imagination loose. To craft images of a world order other than the one offered us in the name of a new order. Create images of power not bent on protectionism or pretense or proving ourselves, but ready to risk for the sake of life abundant for all. [27] This is the same choice that Rauschenbusch made and re-made through the course of his life. And as he struggled and re-affirmed his choice, he lived out his own teaching. He dared to be Christian. In the face of the overwhelming evidence of futility, he chose radical hope, crazy unjustifiable hope. He chose the hope that emerged from his personal experience of the kingdom of God in Hell's Kitchen. He chose the hope that lies in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each day of our lives we are called to make the same decision. What will our choice be? Bibliography Chase, Steve. "Militancy" Orion: People and Nature. (Spring 2002) 40-41. Freeman, Curtis W. et al. Baptist Roots: A Reader in the Theology of a Christian People. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1999. Friedmann, Robert. The Theology of Anabaptism: An Interpretation. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1973. Fromm, Erich. Escape From Freedom. New York, NY: Avon Books, 1941. Gebara, Ivone, Out of the Depths: Women's Experience of Sin and Salvation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002 Handy, Robert T. "Walter Rauschenbusch in Historical Perspective." Baptist Quarterly. July 20, 1969. Hudson, Winthrop, ed. Walter Rauschenbusch: Selected Writings. New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1984. King Jr., Martin Luther. Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1967. Landis, Benson Y. ed. A Rauschenbusch Reader: The Kingdom of God and the Social Gospel. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1957. May, Melanie A. "The Pleasure of Our Lives as Text: A New Rule of Christ for Anabaptist Women." Conrad Grebel Review Vol 10 (Winter 1992), 33-47. Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991. Rauschenbusch, Walter. A Theology of the Social Gospel. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1945. Smucker, Donovan E. The Origins of Walter Rauschenbusch's Social Ethics. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994. Notes [1] Handy, Robert T. "Walter Rauschenbusch in Historical Perspective." Baptist Quarterly. July 20, 1969. 315 quoting Rauschenbusch's biographer, D. R. Sharpe, Walter Rauschenbush (New York, 1942), 54. |