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The Legacy of Walter Rauschenbusch: a Life Informed by Mission Barbara A The Legacy of Walter Rauschenbusch: A Life Informed by Mission Barbara A. Lundsten ccording to Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918), “the E. Clough, spoke at Rochester Theological Seminary’s 1884 com- A Christianization of the social order in the next two mencement exercises. Clough, a well-known Baptist missionary generations” should be added to “the evangelization of the with the American Baptist Telegu Mission who had spearheaded world in this generation,” the dynamic watchword of the Stu- a mass movement in India in the late 1870s, impressed upon his dent Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. At the turn of seminary audience the need for workers to serve as evangelists the century Rauschenbusch witnessed hundreds of students and pastors. Clough’s methods, often controversial, maintained pledge themselves to the austere goal of world evangelization. as much as possible the social cohesion of the community.3 He longed, though, that “those who do not go to the foreign field In 1885, a year before Rauschenbusch graduated from semi- would bind themselves to give some term of their youth at least nary, he heard W. S. Rainsford, an Episcopal priest at St. George’s to social work in the trenches.”1 Church on New York’s East Side, speak about the progressive For Rauschenbusch, known for his leading contribution to reform among his congregation and the community. Rainsford’s the social gospel movement, the trenches were not only the far church was transformed into a center that welcomed the working- distant places of the modern missionary movement but also the class neighborhood by providing immigrants with recreation political and economic social structures of society that impacted as well as educational opportunities. With prophetic foresight the cities of America, which were teeming with newly arrived Rainsford cited the church’s urban mission as the place where immigrants. Rauschenbusch, born to German immigrant par- she would either “win her greatest victory or suffer her most ents, was no stranger to the trenches or to mission. Throughout disastrous defeat.”4 Rauschenbusch, spurred by the missional his life he was personally involved in mission, both home and action taken in the inner city, struggled to reconcile life in the world, and took an avid interest in its impact as a movement. As increasingly industrialized cities with his historical faith and his interests in the social gospel expanded beyond the confines of with confidence in the written Word of God. Few of his profes- the church and into international relations, Rauschenbusch often sors spoke of the mounting concerns produced by the rapid looked to the modern missionary movement, by then over a industrialization of cities, the influx of immigrants, the economic century old, as a model for the social gospel movement. power struggles between the rich and the poor, or the weakening religious mores impacting the changing society. Early Years Rauschenbusch had more than a casual connection with Clough and his foreign mission work. In 1882 Emma Walter Rauschenbusch was the fourth and youngest child of Rauschenbusch, his sister closest in age, became a missionary for August and Caroline Rauschenbusch. Born October 8, 1861, in the Woman’s Baptist Missionary Society of the West. By 1883 Rochester, New York, Walter became the seventh in a line of Emma had become Clough’s associate working among the Telegu, university-trained pastors and the sixth generation to join the a movement that boasted a congregation of over 20,000 partici- “tradition of cultured university graduates.”2 August pants—the largest Baptist church in the world at the time.5 Rauschenbusch, though never attaining the public stature of his Clough respected Emma’s work and decided to take a much- son, was a reformer in his own right. Reared and educated a needed furlough. Lutheran, he came to the United States in 1846 as a missionary to Upon his return to the United States, Clough accepted an German immigrants. In New York, during his work for the invitation to stay at the Rauschenbusch home in Rochester. His American Tract Society, he broke with the Lutheran Church and invitation to be commencement speaker evidently came after he became an avowed Baptist. August Rauschenbusch returned to had justified his conversion methods to Augustus H. Strong, Germany several times and in 1854 brought with him his newly president of the seminary and originally a skeptic of Clough’s wedded wife, Caroline. His leadership attracted attention, and in missionary methods. The result of their discussions was that 1855 he was asked to join the faculty of the Rochester Theological “Clough had completely won over Strong, as well as gained a Seminary, which he did three years later. firm ally in Rauschenbusch.”6 In 1894 Rauschenbusch’s “firm Throughout his adolescence, Walter attended school both in ally” became his brother-in-law when Clough married Emma. Rochester and in Germany. He studied in Germany between Clough’s mission legend, retold to and written by Emma, was 1879 and 1883, and upon his return to Rochester, he enrolled in given a title fitting for the Rauschenbusch legacy—Social Chris- the University of Rochester, as well as Rochester Theological tianity in the Orient (1914). Seminary. During the summers of 1884 and 1885, Rauschenbusch did what he referred to later as “home mission work among the Educational and Spiritual Influences Germans.”7 He served as an interim pastor in Louisville, Ken- tucky, to a German congregation mired in divisive issues. His Near the end of Rauschenbusch’s student years in Rochester, two labor-intensive summers produced conversions and a greater outside speakers left lasting impressions on him. The first, John sense of church unity, leaving an indelible and formative mark on his Christian faith. By the end of his years as a seminarian, Barbara A. Lundsten, a doctoral student in the School of Intercultural Studies Rauschenbusch reported: “Very soon the idea came to me that I at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, is currently researching ought to be a preacher, and help to save souls. I wanted to go out a women-led grassroots mission study movement that took place in the early as a foreign missionary—I wanted to do hard work for God. twentieth century. Indeed, one of the great thoughts that came upon me was that I April 2004 75 ought to follow Jesus Christ in my personal life, and die over quickly expanded his ministry involvement to include weekly again his death. I felt that every Christian ought to participate in meetings with other Baptist pastors, regional conferences, and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in that way help to redeem citywide campaigns for justice and political change. humanity, and it was that thought that gave my life its funda- During the summers of 1887 and 1888, Rauschenbusch trav- mental direction in the doing of Christian work.”8 eled to Northfield, Massachusetts, where he participated in the After Rauschenbusch’s graduation in 1886, he accepted a summer revivals led by evangelist D. L. Moody. There he wrote, call to the pastorate of New York’s Second German Baptist “I gave myself to God unreservedly and had a rich blessing.”13 Church, a position he held for eleven years. Rauschenbusch came He savored the personal relationship such renewals wrought, prepared to save souls. He quickly understood that the area of and prior to 1886 had read sermons from men such as Moody, Hell’s Kitchen on West 45th Street and Tenth Avenue—home to Henry Drummond, Edward Judson, and J. Hudson Taylor. But gangs and immigrants, disease and promiscuity, “crowded ten- the more he read, studied, and associated with leaders and issues ements and noisy factories”—was not “a safe place for saved of social justice, the more he sought to strike a balance between souls.”9 The experience was an awakening, and one that he used the social message and personal communion with God.14 throughout his life to challenge himself personally as well as the As he matured in his faith, social issues pressed to the forefront of his thinking. Without abandoning his personal com- mitment to God, he enlarged its horizons and envisioned its He sought to balance social broader implications. In the process he questioned why the church never challenged him to consider the social question: message and personal “The church held down the social interest in me. It contradicted communion with God. it; it opposed it; it held it down as far as it could; and when it was a question about giving me position or preferment, the fact that I was interested in the workingman was actually against me— church at large. He once told a friend, “In New York a person not for me.”15 He had “personal religion” and a “large social ‘feels the waves of human life all around, as it really is, not as it outlook,” and he thought deeply how to bring these together into ought to be according to the decretum absolutum of an old “a unity of life-faith.” For Rauschenbusch, religion aspired to a theology.’”10 holistic conception of one God, one world, and one redemption. Rauschenbusch dug into his pastoral duties of preaching, Faith was incomplete when life was compartmentalized and visitation, counseling, and study. After only one month, how- God was reserved for one part but not another. He wondered, ever, a hearing problem resurfaced that had first appeared in “Where does the social question come in? Where does the matter Rochester. It was the beginning of a serious hearing condition— come in of saving the world? That does not seem to have any a degenerate neurological defect—that would impact him the place there, does it? And that was the real difficulty in my rest of his life.
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