Paul Raushenbush: September 2007 Archives

This has been a remarkably encouraging conversation. I thank Rev. Hybels for his generosity of spirit and enlightening responses.

My final question for Rev. Hybels has to do with how sin and redemption function within our social lives. Sin is generally understood on an individual level--it can be described as our own will and life being in discord with God’s will for our lives. Thus Christians spend much of our time raising our awareness of sin, repenting of it, experiencing the forgiveness that is transmitted through Jesus Christ, accepting God’s will for our lives, and hopefully trying to transform the way we live to reflect God’s will.

The social gospel has that vision on the macro level. It means that when we pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, we don’t just mean in our individual lives but also within our society and in the world at large. That means actively identifying sin in the way the world is functioning, dedicating ourselves to corporately repenting of that sin, and working to transform the world into accordance with God’s will.

This gets tricky because everyone has an idea of what God’s will is for the world. For some Christians, this means trying to convince everyone to believe in what they believe, or engaging in activism to legislate private morality.

By Paul Raushenbush

It is encouraging to read Pastor Hybels’ post. We appear to agree that the Gospel encompasses both a concern for the soul and for transforming the material existence of the poor. I became eager to attend his church when I read his words that: “in virtually every case, when I see a life get transformed by the atoning work of Christ, it is not long before that new believer sees the plight of the poor…and (has) an intense desire to do whatever is necessary in the name of Christ to eradicate injustice, relieve oppression, and alleviate suffering of any kind.”

I have to say that I am surprised by our convergence and by this claim. I hope that Pastor Hybels is willing to say more about what form this effort takes in his own church and in evangelical churches across the country, because his description of his church is so different from my perception of evangelicalism in America today. Evangelicals seem to be more concerned with proselytizing and campaigning on social issues such as homosexuality than organizing themselves to meet social needs of the poor. Or is that just my ignorance or prejudice? I continue to associate many of the large evangelical churches more with prosperity preaching (which I consider a modern heresy) than with sustained efforts to relieve oppression and alleviate suffering. Maybe in some minds, prosperity preaching is a version of relieving oppression.

By Paul Raushenbush

"Anyone can give a hungry person a sandwich. We have to give them Jesus." This statement by a conservative evangelical got me thinking of this online conversation with Rev. Hybels as the "Jesus vs. Sandwich" debate. I shouldn’t speak for Rev. Hybels, but my guess is that this simple dichotomy won’t work for either of us. That said, framing the debate as "Jesus vs. Sandwich" does raise the question of the primary message of Christianity. Was Jesus’ mission on earth to save individual souls for a future eternal life in heaven or to redeem and transform human lives here and now? To put this in practical terms, if it’s 9 am on Saturday and you have three free hours before lunch to be a good Christian, how should you best spend your time: Talking to people about salvation through Jesus in response to John 3:16, or helping to change society in response to Luke 4:18?

My great-grandfather, Walter Rauschenbusch, is something of a lightning rod for this debate. He was the most famous proponent of a school of Christian thought often called the "social gospel," whose mission was to use the power of the church to reform society to meet the needs of the poor. Because I was raised and have served in mainline churches that essentially welcomed Rauschenbusch’s social gospel ideas one hundred years ago, I have largely received admiring comments from pastors or theologians who recognize the Rauschenbusch name (although it was later shortened to lose the 'c's, apparently in an effort to make the name more American). They often tell me how important my great-grandfather’s work was for them in their own faith journey. We hear echoes of this in a new edition of his 1907 book, now titled Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century. In an essay accompanying the reissued book, Jim Wallis (founder of Sojourners) writes: “As a young evangelical, I was hungry for a Christian social ethic that focused on the poor, on social and racial equality, and on peace. Walter Rauschenbusch was a breath of fresh air.”

What I did not hear growing up were the equally passionate denunciations of Rauschenbusch. I later learned, however, that many Christians feel my great-grandfather’s teachings corrupted the Gospel by focusing on improving society rather than saving souls. Christian author Brian McLaren recently wrote to me, "Like a lot of people from evangelical backgrounds, in my childhood and youth I was taught that the ‘social gospel’ was nothing but evil. I heard it a thousand times in sermons."