Here’s today’s episode of Janet Mefferd Today in which we discussed the “social gospel,” Walter Rauschenbusch, the emergent/emerging church movement and what it means that evangelicals seem to be heading back to this well for inspiration. We also talked about some alternative . . . Continue reading →
From the early 4th century, when Christianity was declared a legal religion and properties were returned to Christians and persecution of Christians was forbidden, the Christian church gradually become intertwined with the empire. Gradually, paganism was marginalized and then eventually made illegal. . . . Continue reading →
Like Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) before him, Rauschenbusch’s Pietism had not equipped him to address the challenges before him. Like Schleiermacher, Rauschenbusch turned to the liberals for answers. He synthesized his Pietist theology with Albrecht Ritschl’s theology of the Kingdom of God. The Social Gospel movement wanted to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. Their optimistic eschatology (doctrine of last things) told them that they could do it. They were inspired by the Modern idea of the universal brotherhood of humanity and the universal fatherhood of God. As many others before them had done the Social Gospel movement harassed the Christian faith to their social agenda. Continue reading →
Anthony Bradley has posted a provocative essay arguing that church planting is insufficient for social change. He appeals to his own experience and to the history of education and Christendom. His post begs some questions and raises others. As to the former, . . . Continue reading →
In Bottum’s revisionist account, Protestant preacher Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) looms as the figure who most succinctly defined the spiritual mission of 20th-century Mainline Protestantism and its heirs. He put “social sins” at the front of the Mainline imagination. “The six social sins, . . . Continue reading →
Sunday night I heard a sermon on Acts 28 during which my attention was drawn to the way Luke uses the expression, “βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ” (Kingdom of God). I was struck by eschatological character of Luke’s conception (and by implication, Paul’s conception, . . . Continue reading →
No Rauschenbusch isn’t resurrected literally but Austin says that he’s being resurrected theologically and Brian McLaren is the new Rauschenbusch.