Social Gospel

I am fascinated with the Social gospel. It seems to me to be the most sensible way to practice religion. Rauchenbusch tried to put the plain and simple truths of Christianity into practice and make the lot of the disenfranchised members of society better. Perhaps it is best stated by Walter himself, when asked about the nature of the Kingdom of God her replied that it, "is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven." Walter's theology puts aside all the irrelevant rubbish, the smoke and mirrors, and the dog and pony shows found in most theological approaches. Walter said, "Theology needs periodical rejuvenation. Its greatest danger is not mutilation but senility. It is strong and vital when it expresses in large reasonings what youthful religion feels and thinks. When people have to be indoctrinated laboriously in order to understand theology at all, it becomes a dead burden. The dogmas and theological ideas of the early church were those ideas which at that time were needed to hold the Church together, to rally its forces, and to give it victorious energy against antagonistic powers. Today many of those ideas are without present significance. Our reverence for them is a kind of ancestor worship. To hold laboriously to a religious belief which does not hold us, is an attenuated form of asceticism; we chastise and starve our intellect to sanctify it by holy beliefs. The social gospel does not need the aid of the church authority to get hold of our hearts”.  
I am so impressed with Walter’s perceptions.  When we hold on to the theological truths of times gone by we fail to truly serve the needs of the masses.  We trade their needs for service to an elect few whose authority is bound up with the maintenance of the status quo.  When churches fail to meet the needs of the people in the present and instead choose to hold fast to their traditions they are failing to meet the most basic needs of their congregations and lose something of their foundational nature.
Walter said, “Very well, if to seek for the establishment of justice and mercy among men is an error; if an attempt to carry out the principles on which Jesus lived into all the departments of life is a heresy; if the effort to make life on this dear old earth sweeter and purer for the dying men who live on it is doomed to failure… then let my life be a failure! I shall meet my Master with a serener face, I think, amid the ruins of such a failure, than if I had successfully fostered a spiritual life which had left justice prostrate on the street and the oppressed crying in vain to God for a champion.”
He faced much criticism during his life from people who either failed, or for reasons of their own, refused to recognize the simple sacredness of his message.  Today many progressives of faith face the same sort of attacks from our brothers and sisters on the right.  Walter was able to see beyond their shallow and self-serving recriminations and pursue a higher ideal. Progressives of faith need to show the same disdain and disregard for the rhetoric of the right and stride forward resolutely and do what is right.

If the Social Gospel had a weakness it was that it’s adherants were so busy going about the business of God they failed to take note of the opportunists from the right who were going to great lengths to undermine it’s foundations with conservative rhetoric.  By the time they looked up from their work it was to late.  The very nature of the Christian right requires followers of the Social Gospel and Liberation theology to proceed with their important work with one hand while keeping the other free to fend off the attacks from their conservative brothers and sisters.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Social Gospel needs to be re-born.  It has never been needed anywhere at anytime as much as it is needed today.  Let the churches of the world lay aside their petty doctrinal differences and try to make a difference in the lot of the least amongst us.  Stop trying to convert people to their unique theological perspectives for “the salvation of souls” and worry about the temporal and secular needs of the disadvantages.  If this could be accomplished people could be free to look after their own souls.Walter provides us with some wonderful quotations; here are three I consider amongst his best;
(1) Sin is a social force.  It runs from person to person along the lines of social contact.  Its impact on the individual becomes most overwhelming when sin is most completely socialized.  Salvation too, is a social force.  It is exerted by groups that are charged with divine will and love.  A full salvation demands a Christian social order that will serve as the spiritual environment of the individual (2) Theologians have felt no hesitation in founding a system of speculative thought on the teachings of Jesus; and yet Jesus was never an inhabitant of the realm of speculative thought.(3) We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in full glow of love for others.(4) History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same.