Once more with Rauschenbusch

I hope the quotations from this giant of 19th and 20th centuries Christianity whetted your appetite to learn more about him. I guess I started thinking about him as our country nears the Presidential elections. It seems every election cycle is about change in some way. In my youth, JFK embodied change as few had done before. Jimmy Carter was a statement about change after the Nixon and Ford administrations. Reagan represented change after Carter. And on it went.

One thing to consider is what kind of change we, as a nation, want and in what areas do we want to see change. For people of faith, Walter Rauschenbusch has a word. I am dependent here on the November 27, 2007 Christian Century article by Gary Dorrien.

First, Rauschenbusch was a realist. He understood much about the limitations of good intentioned people. From his book, Christianity and Social Crisis, he wrote, "We must not blink at the fact that idealists alone have never carried through any great social change ... The possessing classes rule by force and longstanding power. They control nearly all property. The law is on their side, for they have made it ... For a definite historical victory a given truth must depend on the class which makes that truth its own and fights for it."

Second, despite his realism, he recognized what he believed to be important and was willing to struggle for it. From the same book, he wrote, "We shall never have a perfect social life, yet we must seek it with faith ... At best there is always an approximation to a perfect social order. The kingdom of God is always but coming. But every approximation to it is worthwhile."

Maybe we people of faith should ask who will do a better job of bringing about an approximation of the Kingdom of God where justice and peace reigns and then vote.