Walter Rauschenbusch

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Walter Rauschenbusch

Walter Rauschenbusch (born October 4, 1861 in Rochester (New York) , † July 25, 1918 ibid) was an American Baptist theologian and main representative of social gospel .

Life

Rauschenbusch came from a Baptist family of German origin. His father was August Rauschenbusch , who belonged to the second generation of German Baptists and, through his literary and theological teaching activities, had a significant influence on the development of the then young free church .

After graduating from high school in Gütersloh in 1883 and undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester , Walter Rauschenbusch received his theological training at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Rochester, which he finished in 1886. Rauschenbusch became a Baptist preacher in a poor area of Manhattan . Here he joined a group of like-minded people from which the concept of social gospel was developed.

In 1897 Rauschenbusch was offered a professorship at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Rochester. In several writings, especially in A Theology of the Social Gospel (1917), he laid the theological foundations for a social dimension of the Gospel and the resulting responsibility of Christians for social reforms as steps towards the kingdom of God .

meaning

Rauschenbusch combined evangelical pietism with a passion for capitalism and social reform in a special way . His views continued into the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Walter Rauschenbusch also published a hymn book together with Ira David Sankey and was also active as a hymn poet and translator. In the free church hymn book Celebrations and Praises there is another song verse by him under number 248: I look at your cross .

Fonts

  • The gospel singer. (Hymn book; edited together with Ira David Sankey ), Verlag von JGOncken Successor (Phil. Bickel) Hamburg 1890.
  • Christianity and the Social Crisis . 1907 - New edition with a foreword by Douglas F. Ottati: Louisville 1991, ISBN 0-664-25321-0 .
  • The Freedom of Spiritual Religion . Philadelphia 1910.
  • Christianizing the Social Order . 1912.
  • A Theology for the Social Gospel . New York 1917 (German: The religious foundations of the social message, translated from English by Clara Ragaz, with an introduction by Leonhard Ragaz, Erlenbach / Zurich 1922).

literature

  • Don E. Smucker: Walter Rauschenbusch and Anabaptist historiography. In: The Anabaptism. Legacy and Commitment. (Ed. Guy F. Hershberger), Stuttgart 1963, pp. 273-286.
  • Eberhard Amelung: Walter Rauschenbusch . In: Trends in Theology in the 20th Century. A story in portraits . Ed. V. Hans Jürgen Schultz, Stuttgart a. a. 1966, pp. 69-73.
  • Christoph Bresina: From the awakening movement to "Social Gospel:" Walter Rauschenbusch's origins, environment and development until 1891 . Marburg, Univ., Diss., 1993.
  • Uwe Dammann: Article Rauschenbusch, Walter (1861–1918) . In: Ev. Lexicon for theology and congregation . Vol. 3, 1994, 1655f.
  • Milenko Andjelic: Christian faith as a prophetic religion: Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr . Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Bern; New York; Paris; Vienna: Lang 1998 (International Theology; Vol. 3) Zugl .: Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 1996 ISBN 3-631-33576-8 .
  • Uwe Dammann: A radical for the kingdom of God. A memory of Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) . In: The community. 20/2011, p. 12.
  • Karl Rennstich:  Rauschenbusch, Walter. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 1415-1419.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Gunnar Hillerdal: Art. Poverty , Chapter VII: 16. – 20. Century (ethical) . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE), Vol. 4. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, pp. 98–121, here p. 113.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rauschenbusch, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Baptist theologian
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Rochester (New York) , USA
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1918
Place of death Rochester (New York) , USA