Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) was an American theologian and Baptist pastor who taught at the Rochester Theological Seminary. Rauschenbusch was a key figure in the Social Gospel and single tax movements that flourished in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also the maternal grandfather of the influential philosopher Richard Rorty and the great-grandfather of Paul Raushenbush.
Walter Rauschenbusch was born October 4, 1861, in Rochester, New York, to Germans Augustus Rauschenbusch and the former Caroline Rump.
Though he went through a youthful rebellious period, at age 17 he experienced a personal religious conversion which "influenced [his] soul down to its depths." Like the Prodigal Son, he wrote, "I came to my Father, and I began to pray for help and got it." But he later felt that this experience was incomplete, focused on repentance from personal sins but not from social sins.
After high school, he went to study in a gymnasium (equivalent to a preparatory school) in Gütersloh in Germany. Thereafter, he returned to the United States and studied at the University of Rochester where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1884. Then, he studied theology at the Rochester Theological Seminary of the American Baptist Churches USA and obtained a Bachelor of Divinity in 1886.
When he attended Rochester Theological Seminary, his early teachings were challenged. He learned of higher criticism, which led him to comment later that his "inherited ideas about the inerrancy of the Bible became untenable." He also began to doubt the substitutionary atonement; in his words, "it was not taught by Jesus; it makes salvation dependent upon a trinitarian transaction that is remote from human experience; and it implies a concept of divine justice that is repugnant to human sensitivity." But rather than shaking his faith, these challenges reinforced it.
In 1886, Rauschenbusch began his pastorate in the Second German Baptist Church in "Hell's Kitchen", New York. Urban poverty and funerals for children led him to social activism. For him, the Church had an essential role in the fight against systemic injustices among all groups and for each person.
In 1892, Rauschenbusch and some friends formed a group called the Brotherhood of the Kingdom. Pastors and leaders joined the organization to debate and implement the social gospel.
In 1897, he began teaching the New Testament at Rochester Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York, until 1902, where he taught Church history.
In 1907, he published the book Christianity and the Social Crisis which would influence the actions of several actors of the social gospel.
In 1917, the publication of the book A Theology for the Social Gospel will rally at the cause of the social gospel many liberal Protestant churches. In this book, he explains that Christians must be like the Almighty who became man in Jesus Christ, who was with everyone equally and considered people as a subject of love and service.
Walter Rauschenbusch died in Rochester on July 25, 1918, at the age of 56.
Rauschenbusch's work influenced, among others, Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, Lucy Randolph Mason, Reinhold Niebuhr, Norman Thomas, George McGovern, James McClendon, and his grandson, Richard Rorty. Even in the 21st century Rauschenbusch's name is used by certain social-justice ministries in tribute to his life and work, including such groups as the Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries in New York and the Rauschenbusch Center for Spirit and Action in Seattle.
The North American Baptist Conference Archives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and the American Baptist Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia, both maintain extensive Rauschenbusch collections. The Archives of the Orchard Community Church in Greece, New York, contain the original baptismal records of Walter and membership records for his wife and father.
A stained-glass window was given to the Andrews Street Baptist Church (known as the First German Baptist Church until 1918) in Rochester around 1929 by Mrs. Edmund Lyon. The building was vacant during the late 1960s and some of the windows were stolen, including part of the original Rauschenbusch window. A new congregation purchased the building and a stained-glass expert repaired and re-created some of the windows; however, the upper portion of the Rauschenbusch window is substantially different from the original. A photograph of the original window appears in a booklet that was published for the centennial celebration of the church in 1951.
Rauschenbusch's view of Christianity was that its purpose was to spread the Kingdom of God, not through a "fire and brimstone" style of preaching, but by the Christlike lives led by its members. Rauschenbusch did not understand Jesus' death as an act of substitutionary atonement; rather, he came to believe that Jesus died "to substitute love for selfishness as the basis of human society." Rauschenbusch wrote that "Christianity is in its nature revolutionary" and tried to remind society of that. He taught that the Kingdom of God "is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven."
In Rauschenbusch's early adulthood, mainline Protestant churches were largely allied with the social and political establishment, in effect supporting such practices as the use of child labor and the domination of robber barons. Many church leaders did not see a connection between these issues and their own congregations, so did nothing to address the suffering. But Rauschenbusch saw it as his duty as a minister and student of Christ to act with love by trying to improve social conditions.
In Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Rauschenbusch wrote, "Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master." The significance of this work is that it spoke of the individual's responsibility toward society.
In his Theology for the Social Gospel (1917), he wrote that for John the Baptist, the baptism was "not a ritual act of individual salvation but an act of dedication to a religious and social movement."