Food Fight! Beliefnet Bloggers Debate Rick Warren
Wednesday December 17, 2008
There's a bit of an in-house dust-up here at Bnet over Steve Waldman's extensive interview with Rick Warren (VIDEO / TRANSCRIPT). Steve's posted on it a few times, as have others around the blogosphere.But here in the friendly confines of...
Filed Under: andrew sullivan, barack obama, george w bush, paul raushenbush, purpose driven church, purpose driven life, rick warren, same sex marriage, scot mcknight, social gospel, steve waldman, theodicy, walter rauschenbush
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About The New Christians
Tony Jones is the author of many books, including The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life. He is a leader in the emergent church movement and a renowned expert on postmodern theology and the American church landscape.
Find out more about Tony, his books, and his speaking schedule at his website.
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I'm sure that you'd rather have BO's Pastor Wright pray the invocation huh Tony. Rick is too simplistic? That's the Gospel, very simple ... Social Gospel? How about the factual Gospel that Rick and, oh yeah The Bible talk about. Keep on diluting the Gospel to make it more palatable Tony, and who knows, maybe you'll convince yourself and all of your followers that satanic priests will enter into the Kingdom of God. Did you ever even read the Bible Tony? He died for you too.
Peace, Jeff
I've read two of Walter Rauschenbusch's books, and he rightly recognized that the gospel applies to how we save our society as well as how we save our souls. (Both are covered in the pages of the bible, and they are closely linked. And, It's only Marxism when charity becomes State-owned and operated---there's no virtue in helping the poor with someone else's confiscated money.)
"We have taken the hopeful position that our entire social order, with all its terrible immoralities, is neverthess woven through with Christian elements, which form the basis of its further regeneration. The same thing is true of our economic order. With all their bitter cruelty and wrong our factories are the cells out of which a christianized industry must be evolved. Even now business men are public servants in embryo. They pride themselves on the community service they are rendering, and many a one of them would serve admirably as Bishop of the Church of Holy Industry, if he had half a chance to put his Christian good will into action." (From "Christianizing the Social Order" - Walter Rauschenbusch, p.237 -- , New York, The Macmillan Company, 1919 )
One of W. Rauschenbusch's most useful observations has to do with how Evangelicalism's perpetual "sky is falling" refrain works against it's own mission. He writes:
"The social gospel seeks to develop the vision of the Church toward the future and co-operate with the will of God which is shaping the destinies of humanity. It would be aided and reinforced by a modern and truly Christian conception about the future of mankind. At present no other theological influence so hampers and obstructs the social gospel as that of eschatology. All considerations taken from the life of the twentieth century cry out for something like the social gospel; but the ideas of the first century contained in eschatology are used to veto it. Those who have trained their religious thinking on the Hebrew prophets and the genuine teachings of Jesus are for the social gospel; those who have trained it on apocalyptic ideas are against it. This is all the more pathetic because the pre-millennial scheme is really an outline of the social salvation of the race. Those who hold it exhibit real interest in social and political events. But, they are best pleased when they see humanity defeated and collapsing, for then the salvation is nigh. Active work for the salvation of the social order...is not only vain but against the will of God. Thus [futurist] eschatology defeats the Christian imperative of righteousness and salvation." (From Theology for the Social Gospel - Walter Rauschenbusch, p. 210-211,-- New York, The Macmillan Company, 1918 )
He's absolutely correct, and he wrote that in 1918. Could have been written today.
Most evangelicals seem unaware that the primary application of eschatology pertained to the first century end of the Old Testamental age. Sites like preteristvision.org and preteristarchive.com do a nice job of showing how eschatology applied primarily to the apostles' generation, with a focus on the Roman Imperial Cult and the dissolution of the Old Covenant world, religion, and state at AD 70. Imminence pertained to them, not to us. The current age may have hundreds of thousands of years to go, if not more. That changes the perspective of what Christians are to be doing somewhat.
Maybe RW was just trying to exhibit post-modern playfulness and irony with his comment about the social gospel....
yeah...
maybe...
I mean, it's ironic and all....and....
forget it.
Obama should have Steve Jobs pray.
Funny Jeff - you end your comment saying "peace" - but I don't see any evidenced in your comments.
Good post, Tony. I have a lot of respect for Warren and many of the things he's done - particularly his raising awareness among evangelicals of the problems in Africa - but I have also been disappointed and disturbed by some of his recent comments about homosexuality, torture, and the so-called "social gospel."
Just a side note, African AIDS awareness is Ricks wife's passion; he just offered his resources and stage to help her.
Peace, Jeff
I think Obama's words speak for themselves:
"A couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion," he said. "Nevertheless I had an opportunity to speak, and that dialogue I think is part of what my campaign's been all about, that we're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans."
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