Publisher's Synopsis
It is said that Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) was "the leading spokesman for the theology of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism" (from the introduction by Pelikan, 586). Although a Baptist minister, Rauschenbusch apparently rejected biblical literalism in favor of historical criticism-a method of biblical analysis that originated in Rauschenbusch's fatherland in the first half of the nineteenth century. This method, quite popular even today, allowed Rauschenbusch to see the Gospel through the prism of the contemporary understanding of history, which in the age of social revolutions was dominated by the struggles of the lower classes. In a series of books and essays, Rauschenbusch applied principles he believed were found in the Gospel as calls for social reform that continue to ring true for many modern Christian theologians. In "The Social Principles of Jesus," Rauschenbusch's last essay published in 1918, the author attempted to use his reading of the Gospel as a foundation for social philosophy.
