Traditionally, theologians have divided the Ten Commandments into two “tables,” with the first five commandments having to with our relationship with God and the second five related to our relationships with each other. To illustrate, he turns to the familiar Ten Commandments text from Exodus. Just as soon as the desire for salvation becomes strong and intelligent enough to look beyond the personal sins of the individual, and to discern how our personality in its intake and output is connected with social groups to which we belong, the problem of social redemption is before us and we can never forget it. It is simply a proper part of the Christian faith in redemption from sin and evil. The idea of the redemption of the social organism is nothing alien. One of Rauschenbusch’s primary points is that if Christians want to be appropriately concerned about sin, they need to focus their attention not just on the individual, but rather on the social structures that influence and create the individual. It is up to us to act on the message of Christ and help create the kingdom of God on earth. “God is acting, and Christ is here now,” Rauschenbusch proclaimed.

After all, we pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom of Heaven is to be created now. Mainline Christianity, with its emphasis on individual sin and redemption, its focus on dogma and doctrine, as well as its energies directed toward the future rather than the present, has replaced “the religion of Jesus Christ with a theology which he never taught nor intended.”Īdvocates of the social gospel often turned to the Lord’s Prayer when they advocated for applying Christian ethics to social problems. Christianity has morphed, Rauschenbusch argues, into something that Jesus would have not recognized as compatible with his teaching and life. Rauschenbusch’s critique of mainline Christianity in his day is directly relevant to our time. Progressive Christians today, with their focus on many of these same issues more than a century later, are the inheritors of the spirit and energies of Rauschenbusch and the social gospel movement. Rauschenbusch was one of the most important voices of the social gospel movement in the early 20 th century, a movement within Protestantism that applied Christian ethics to social problems, particularly issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, unclean environment, poor schools, and the dangers of war.

Who is spencer in visions of glory