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Walter Rauschenbusch Quotes
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Walter Rauschenbusch 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. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. October 1861 – 25. July 1918
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Walter Rauschenbusch: 83   quotes 0   likes

Walter Rauschenbusch Quotes

“The most important effects of Christianity went out from it without the intention of the Church, or even against its will.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 150

“Some of the anxiety about personal religion is due to a subtle lack of faith in religion. Men think it is a fragile thing that will break up and vanish when the customs and formulas which have hitherto encased and protected it are broken and cast aside. Most of us have known religion in one form, and we suppose it can have no other. But religion is the life of God in the soul of man, and is God really so fragile?”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 105

Life , Men , God , Faith

“The influence of Christianity in taming selfishness and stimulating the sympathetic affections, in creating a resolute sense of duty, a stanch love of liberty and independence, an irrepressible hunger for justice and a belief in the rights of the poor, has been so subtle and penetrating that no one can possibly trace its effects. …And yet human society has not been reconstituted in accordance with the principles of Jesus Christ.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 147-148

Love , Hunger , Justice , Sense

“The better we know Jesus, the more social do his thoughts and aims become.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 46

“Against this current conception of religion the prophets insisted on a right life as the true worship of God. Morality to them was not merely a prerequisite of effective ceremonial worship. They brushed sacrificial ritual aside altogether as trifling compared with righteousness, nay, as a harmful substitute and a hindrance for ethical religion.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 5

Life , God , Religion

“We shall confine this brief study of the Old Testament to the prophets, because they are the beating heart of the Old Testament.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 3

Study , Heart

“The landed wealth of the Church alone sufficed to make it a power of the highest rank in the feudal system of the Middle Ages, in which all power finally rested on the possession of the land. Bishops and abbots became feudal dignitaries, sometimes almost sovereign princes in their own domains, and always with a potent voice in the government of their nations.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 144

Age , Wealth

“Personal religion collapses with some individuals, because in their case it had long been growing hollow and thin. … In reality there was little personal religion to lose, and that little would probably have been lost in some other way.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 106

Religion , Way , Reality , Personality

“In general, the Church has often rendered valuable aid by joining the advanced public conscience of any period in its protest against some single intolerable evil, but it has accepted as inevitable the general social system under which the world was living at the time, and has not undertaken any thoroughgoing social reconstruction in accordance with Christian principles.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 149-150

World , Evil , Time

“If this is indeed the alternative, we are in a tragic situation, compelled to choose between social righteousness and communion with God.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 103

God

“The Book of Isaiah begins with a description of the disasters which had overtaken the nation and then in impassioned words the prophet spurns the means taken to appease Jehovah's anger. "…Cease to do evil! Learn to do right! Seek justice! Relieve the oppressed! Secure justice for the orphaned and plead for the widow."”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Isaiah I. 10-17.
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 5

Books , Justice , Learning , Evil

“The organization in which this movement was embodied, after three centuries of obscurity and oppression, rose triumphant to be the dominant power of the civilized world. Christian churches were scattered broadcast over the Roman Empire. …Its churches were endowed with the ancient properties and rights of the temples. Its clergy were given immunity from the taxes and exactions which crushed all other classes. Its members filled the civil service. Its great bishops had the ear of the men in power.”

Walter Rauschenbusch

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 143-144

Men , World