[Dialogue] New Century, Same Crisis--The Social Gospel 100 Years Later

Mon Nov 5 05:44:15 EST 2007

John,

Sounds like a very exciting workshop.  Would love to participate in it.  I think Niebuhr indeed intended that the church as social pioneer should lead society in the act of repentance.  However, I also believe, in light of the time in which he wrote, that he intended for us to repent for social sin.  I find that it's when racialism, nationalism, and economic imperialism show up in the very fabric of Enron, Halliburton, the Catholic church, the White House, Justice Department, Supreme Court, etc. that the innocents are slaughtered.

Randy  

----- Original Message ----
From: John Montgomery <monkeyltd at comcast.net>
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sunday, November 4, 2007 9:47:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] New Century, Same Crisis--The Social Gospel 100 Years Later

I still use the Niebuhr paper – but the key for me has to do with his insights on repentance as an act – “innocent suffering” serves as a window into discerning the new aspects of the Will of God. I like to start the workshops with a question like, when has innocent suffering come up and slapped you in the face? Where were you living your life like always, and something happened where you said – somebody has to do something about that? Get enough of these in a list, then ask what’s going on behind all this. Then work thru HRN’s model – 1) what public sign of your rejection of this sin (I think HRN was relating the “turn your back” phrase to the fact that abolitionists used to stand with their back turned at slave auctions., the 2) what would it mean to abolish this within your own structures, and 3) what would it mean for you to lead the rest of society in this act of repentance? Nice workshop with a congregation – avoids social
 action based on abstract ideology (Sartre taught us that that got tired) and grounds it in a group’s actual personal experience.

Grace and Peace,

John C. Montgomery
monkeyltd at comcast.net
john.montgomery at acfb.org
678-468-4913 (personal)

Visit My Blog - Notes From the Balcony
www.monkeyltd.blogspot.com

From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Len Hockley
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 12:14 AM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] New Century, Same Crisis--The Social Gospel 100 Years Later

Randy,
Sounds like a possibility.  I'm not really sure who is planning the guts of the Springboard meeting. Certainly Gillis, Harper and M Jones are involved.  

Will the Springboard program team please STAND UP?

Len

At 04:50 AM 11/3/2007 -0700, you wrote:

Len,

HRN put wheels under Rauschenbusch's social gospel and the key insight that it's not just individual conversion but social (meaning instituitional) change as well.  We translated what it means to be social pioneers into the three master strategies of (1) contextual reeducation, (2) structural reformulation and (3) spiritual remotivation.  Even though all three of these address social as well as individual contradictions, the transformation of society's structures is, I believe, the one most directed at socia change and the one that most often is neglected.  We said 30 years ago that Niebuhr's social evils of "racialism, nationalism and economic imperialism" were as predominant then as they were in Niebuhr's time.  I think that is still true for today.  To the point, today as ever in order to care for those who care one must address the structures of society which continue to institutionalize racialism, nationalism and economic imperialism, and not focus
 just on the first and last strategies.  No single one of them is effective unless all three are spinning.

Maybe Springboard should dust off those old strategies and decide what the contemporary form of them must be.  What do you think?

Randy

----- Original Message ----
From: Len Hockley <lenh at efn.org>
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>; Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Friday, November 2, 2007 4:36:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] New Century, Same Crisis--The Social Gospel 100 Years Later

A good read Randy.  

I always  thought there was a basic difference between Reinhold and H .Richard.  Hooray for H. Richard

Any way you can see this wisdom to be of use to our meeting of "Springboard"?

Len

At 01:43 PM 11/2/2007 +0000, R Williams wrote:

Colleagues,

In the introduction to the G-O-D Lecture in RS-1 we marked the year 1907 as the beginning of the 20th century, and we grounded this with events such as Einstein's theory of relativity, the Bolshevik Revolution, World War I, etc.  One of the events we did not mention was the publication in that year of the book by Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, which introduced what has come to be known as the "social gospel."

I have attached an article from Commonweal magazine in which Carey Nelson Blake states that "Rauschenbusch tore down the wall that separated faith from the public world and called on the church to address the suffering and degradation that accompanied the rapid industrialization of the United States ."

Regarding the importance of this for our roots, H. Richard Niebuhr was clearly influenced by Rauschenbusch when he stated that the church as social pioneer turns its back on the manifestations of "sin" or "evil", abolishes it within itself, and leads in the social act of repentance.  For Rauschenbusch, according to Blake, "Sin was embedded in institutional arrangements, not just in individual motivations and actions...  A faithful life demanded of sinners both personal and social repentance."

Another note of interest, Paul Raushenbush, a great-grandson of Walter, has edited a new edition titled Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century..

I hope you have time to read the attached article.  I would be interested in your reflections.

Randy Williams

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