The Social Gospel and ObamaBy Steven R. Rider

©2012 by Steven R. Rider. All rights reserved.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon religion

surfaced in early 2012 during the Republican Primary. Now, some

critics are questioning President Barack Obama’s religious views.

Therefore, when information comes into the public square via a

New York Times report claiming Reverend Jeremiah Wright made

controversial remarks and even implicated the Obama 2008 Campaign

in a “bribery” scheme to obtain his silence, the pundits and

airwaves take notice. Since there will be sufficient time to

investigate this allegation and take into account any bias

Reverend Wright may possess over the next few months, no opinion

concerning this explosive charge is asserted here. Instead, this

essay explores Reverend Wright’s, and thus Pres. Obama’s

connection to earlier Christian Social Gospel practioners. The

Social Gospel story began with early Christian evangelicals and

continues up to this day.

Throughout United States history, Christian evangelicalism

has provided rationales for political and economic reform. In

the three great reform movements of the late 19th and 20th

centuries, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the civil

rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, reformers looked to the

life and teachings of Jesus for inspiration. Explaining the

religious elements in progressive political philosophy is

important to understand the restructuring in the U.S. economy and

the reasons for socio-economic legislation passed during the

reform eras. The Social Gospel's Kingdom of God concept

articulated by evangelicals like Washington Gladden and Walter

Rauschenbusch created the backdrop for the later thought of

Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Cone, the Rev.

Jeremiah Wright and even Barack Obama. Seen through the Social

Gospel lens, American progressivism utilized religious realism,

Jesus’s teachings, and other social Christian principles as

reasons for reform. The Social Gospel relied on an ancient

Christian concept where the church is seen as pivotal to the

social mission to transform society. The source for this idea is

the Bible, particularly the New Testament Gospels and Acts. How

this religious ideology became absorbed in U.S. political change

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is a story that begins with the Protestant Reformation and a

radical Calvinist sect, the Anabaptists.

The Anabaptists were part of the 16th century Protestant

reform movement based on the Swiss theologian Ulrich Zwingli's

teachings. His primary religious doctrine was based on adult

baptism. Although Calvinistic, in the sense that everything is

predestined, Anabaptists argued only adults could accept

salvation through Jesus because assent required the voluntary

exercise of free will, something children were not considered as

having the ability to do. Anabaptists believed once the adult

consents to becoming a Christian, that person must accept

responsibility to take Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount literally. In

it, Jesus expressed two principles repeated in the Social Gospel:

the Golden Rule and God’s Kingdom on earth. From the Lord’s

Prayer, Jesus exclaims the Kingdom of God will come to “earth as

it is in Heaven.”1 In the Beatitudes, he said: “Blessed are the

poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”2

Evangelicals interpreted this Sermon as instruction for the good

1 Matt. 6:10. Citations are to the New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha unless otherwise noted.2 Matt. 5:3.

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life to serve God’s will in the here and now. Confirming the

economy’s subordinate role, Anabaptist theologians cited Matt.

6:24: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the

one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the

other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”3

Rejecting metaphysical concepts such as the Trinity, the

Anabaptists saw Jesus’ work among suffering people in the Gospels

as the example for how men and women should live their lives.

They interpreted the New Testament as requiring all property to

be held in common; the rich should share with the poor, and the

old and diseased should be treated for free, all in preparation

for the New Kingdom. (Matt. 5: 1 – 14) The Anabaptists gained

control in the City of Munster, Westphalia where they established3 There remains a controversy on the sources for early New Testament writings.Critical analysis in the late 19th century challenged the Christian assumptionthat the New Testament was written by apostles based on first-hand eye witnessexperience. Instead most biblical scholars today believe the Gospels were written between seventy and one hundred years after Jesus’ death. Furthermore, the first Christians, other than the Apostle Paul, rarely wrote down their teachings and practices. Thus, Christian theology from the earliest period is highly problematic as the “orthodox” view incorporated in the works now known as the New Testament was selected from many varying Christian works. Further, many histories and theological works were apologieswritten in response to challenges from various groups, including the pagan Romans between approximately 100 C.E. and 380 C.E. The Anabaptists, like manyearly Protestant groups were fundamentalists and adopted a literal interpretation of the New Testament without questioning the sources. See Steven R. Rider, “Early Christian Historiography: Rewriting History in Reaction to Critics” a paper presented to American Public University, Historiography, HIST 501, March 2010.

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a communistic theocracy anticipating Jesus's return to establish

his Kingdom of God. Mainstream Protestants and Catholics

claimed this radical theology was heretical, battled with them

for years, and eventually forced the Anabaptists from political

power, and their movement receded into history. However, this

idea of Christian socialism resurfaced in the Social Gospel. The

greatest exponent of the Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch used

Anabaptists' pietistic doctrines to develop a 19th century

Kingdom of God theory.4

Social Christianity grew out of theological liberalism in

the 19th century. Broad-minded theologians like Horace Bushnell

and Washington Gladden reacted to the Gilded Age by condemning

overpowering and oppressive large business corporations. They

advocated worker's rights for “fair wages” and safe workplaces;

when events such as the Haymarket Square occurred, Gladden argued

the employer class should set up profit-sharing enterprises and

4 Christopher H. Evans, The Kingdom is Always but Coming: a Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, U.K., 2004, Kindle Version 2010), see particularly Chapters 1 and 2. Evans traces the development of Rauschenbusch’s upbringing in the Baptist tradition and as a historian who wrote at length on his views of social Christianity practiced by the early Anabaptists.

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slowly transform into a more Christian society.5 Gladden did not

advocate dismantling the capitalist state. He refused to accept

both state socialism of European social democracy and Marxism.

Though he would predict in his memoir, Recollections, the U.S. would

adopt a socialistic experiment, he preferred unionized industrial

democracy to state ownership of all commerce.6 This reluctant

challenge to the current system changed with Walter

Rauschenbusch.

Rauschenbusch grew up in his father's shadow. August

Rauschenbusch was a devout Calvinist who made sure his son Walter

was brought up on the strictest Protestantism emphasizing

salvation by only those who accepted the word of God. At the

gymnasium in Germany, Rauschenbusch’s studied the Bible and took

courses heavy in history and economics. He particularly enjoyed

investigating the Anabaptist movement’s history. Later, he

graduated from Rochester Theological Seminary and began his New

York ministry in 1886. Steeped in a clear Baptist ministry

mission, he never lost his passion for research on the

5 Gary Dorrien, Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice (New York, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 8.6 Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1909).

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Anabaptists.7 For several years, he ministered in a church in

New York City’s Hell's Kitchen, at the time suffering from

overcrowding, crime, poverty, unsanitary conditions, and other

social ills. Claiming American business caused these problems,

Rauschenbusch said:

Very early in life the children are hitchedto the machine for life, and the vitalitywhich ought to build their bodies during thecrucial period of adolescence is used up tomake goods a little cheaper, or, what is morelikely, merely to make profits a littlelarger.8

Seeking to solve these societal ills, Rauschenbusch returned

to Anabaptist pietistic principles. Pietism is a European

Protestant movement which rejected formalism, favoring subjective

devotion to the church. From his research on Anabaptists,

Rauschenbusch noticed not only their communal, pluralistic and

experiential nature, but their devotion to curing societal ills.

He advocated practical solutions to his parishioners' poverty,

establishing community centers to assist the poor. As he

wholeheartedly accepted the Christian mission he sacrificed

7 Evans, Location 284 through 320.8 Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Harper & Co., 1964,Kindle Version 2010), Location 3590 through 3595.

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material goods to establish welfare institutions and schools as a

social safety network for the oppressed. Rauschenbusch and his

family suffered because of his charity, but his German pietistic

upbringing required him to follow the Gospel. To the literal

mind, it required devoting oneself to help the less fortunate, a

duty to be our brother’s keeper.9

The Social Gospel's second theological foundation is

sectarianism. Rauschenbusch argued the Kingdom of God required a

new social order establishing an egalitarian presbytery. He

rejected the privileged hierarchy and formalism in Roman

Catholicism. The church is a voluntary democratic association

based in the local community. There it must address current

social ills. This gives the Kingdom of God idea a new meaning.

Following the Lord's Prayer phraseology ("on earth as it is in

heaven"), Rauschenbusch reinterpreted Christian doctrine defining

Kingdom of God as "not a matter of getting individuals to heaven,

but of transforming the life on Earth into the harmony of9 Walter Rauschenbusch, The Social Principles of Jesus (New York: The Women’s Press, 1917, Kindle Version 2010), Location 293. Rauschenbusch cites as authority for the “social principle” Matthew chapter 22, versus 35 to 40: "And he said unto him, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. A second like unto it is this, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets."

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heaven."10 It becomes a collective concept, encompassing

society’s salvation not just its individual members.11 The

pulpit is used to communicate Jesus’ teachings to the common

people to prevent humanity from continuing its downward spiral

into sin.12

The third pillar to the Social Gospel theology derives from

Protestant liberal tradition based on Enlightenment principles.

Immanuel Kant, the great German idealist served as a source, a

philosophical foundation for the 19th century Christian

evangelicals. Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals adapted the New Testament

Golden Rule as the basis for the new social structure.13 Treat

all people as an end and not a means to an end, Kant argued.

Individuals must be guided by the internal will to do right by

other people. Adopting this morality, governments equalize the

playing field for everyone. Kantian rationalism holds individual

autonomy is obtained only in a system where capitalist desires

are tempered to favor the people’s general welfare.

10 Ibid., Location 1175. For Rauschenbusch, God's special mission for Americawas the realization of the Kingdom of God.11 Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, Ibid., Location 1171. 12 Evans, Location 1493.13 “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. " Matt. 7:12.

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The fourth element was Christian socialism. The term was

coined by British clergy known as the Maurice-Kingsley-Ludlow

group of Broad Churchmen. For Rauschenbusch the class struggle

between the poor and the wealthy capitalist class could only be

solved by government intervention to reduce inequality. He

argued in Christianity and the Social Crisis government was the solution to

poverty. Government ownership of the major means of production

was required although he felt individuals could maintain a minor

amount of personal property they could call their own. Society

must rid itself of evil and for Rauschenbusch that meant

destroying capitalism. He said: “the love of money is the root

of all evil.”14 The suggestion was revolutionary; the promise of

the second coming of Jesus must be met by a Christian society

made ready by the Social Gospel evangelicals. For him, the

Social Gospel was the agency through which the labor, socialist,

and cooperative movements would erect a new transformed

egalitarian society.15

14 Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917), 96.15 H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 194.

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While the Social Gospel’s egalitarian goal was clear the

method for achieving it was ambiguous. Rauschenbusch thought the

Kingdom would occur gradually.16 Still, the Social Gospel

inspired some progressives to push for social and political

reform. They appeared at hearings on the state and local level

arguing for minimum wage laws, child labor restrictions,

workmen’s compensation programs, and other worker’s rights

measures. Jane Addams, who started the Hull House in Chicago and

others such as Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, the co-founders of

Toynbee Hall, shared Rauschenbusch goal to make the church an

agency in social change. However, not all progressives were

motivated by religion, so the intellectual rationale for reforms

was not necessarily shared and the ministers who preached the

Social Gospel "remained institutionally weak."17 Attaining the

Kingdom of God on earth expressed a serious revolution, yet

16 Critics noted this ambiguity and charged the Social Gospel with no means for implementation. “Progressives believed that ‘man can be reformed by argument’ and that the ‘good in man will be liberated by a change in economic institutions… Schlesinger … found in Rauschenbusch’s work one among many expressions of the delusion that the ‘simple moralism of the gospels would resolve the complex issues of industrial society.” Christopher Lasch, “Religious Contributions to Social Movements: Walter Rauschenbusch, the SocialGospel and its Critics,” The Journal of Religious Ethics (Spring 1990, Repub. 2001), 12.17 Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order: 1877-1920 (New York: Hill & Wang Pub. 1967), 207.

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Gladden, Rauschenbusch and others were criticized for their

cautious non-violent advocacy for changing the existing social

order.18 Feminists and some black leaders complained the

movement avoided racial and gender equality issues.19

By the end of World War I support for the Social Gospel

movement waned in part because men like Rauschenbusch appeared

unpatriotic to some. Support for the U.S. entry into World War I

split the ranks of the progressives while many members of the

Social Gospel movement remained committed against the war.

Rauschenbusch and other Protestant ministers spoke out publicly

against the U.S. entry into World War I. Rauschenbusch and Dr.

Charles Aked wrote a pamphlet making a Christian argument against

the war.20 They used the phrase “profiteering from sale of arms”

to discredit the rush to war.21 Even war opponents like

Rauschenbusch, who remained loyal to the U.S., came under

18 “They expected the ruling classes to surrender their wealth and power without a fight, merely in response to moral suasion and political ‘education.’” Lasch, 12 – 13.19 The editor of the major Black journal, Crisis, noted Rauschenbusch detailed black suppression’s meaning, but offered no solution to white oppression otherthan moral suasion. “The Negro and the Church”, Crisis (March 1914), 232-233.20 Charles F. Aked and Walter Rauschenbusch, Private Profit and the Nation's Honor: a Protest and a Plea. The pamphlet can be found at U.S. Department of State, Neutrality Advocates, September 1915.21 "Dr. Aked Comments on the War – Colleague Joins Him in Protest – Traffic inWar Arms is Scored,” San Francisco Chronicle, 19 May 1915.

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suspicion during the red scare. These problems did not stop the

preaching; they only encouraged Rauschenbusch to be more

outspoken on social reform. For example, at a religious

conference at Berkeley Rauschenbusch argued:

The great social task of churches at thepresent time is to cooperate with this newsocial consciousness in the nation,clarifying it and inspiring it with religiousdaring and confidence in its own demands.The ultimate task of the Christian churchesis to build up really Christian social orderfor all mankind. Our immediate task is tobring our social order into harmony with atleast the moral conviction now growing in ourNation.22

Even though the Roaring Twenties was a decade of

manufacturing advances and consumer prosperity, racial and social

injustice remained. The Ku Klux Klan actually made gains, while

lynching and the racially tainted criminal-justice system became

a black mark on U.S. society. Income inequality and a

speculative boom in the capital markets eventually led to

overleveraged consumers, businesses, and governments. When the

recession during the early part of 1929 failed to fade away, the

stock market crashed in October. The Great Depression that22 “Earl Lecturer on Social Order”, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 April 1920.

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followed shook American society to its core. A revived Social

Gospel offered a rationale for reform.

Herbert Hoover, blamed by many for not taking drastic enough

action to relieve the suffering, was defeated by Franklin D.

Roosevelt in the 1932 election. FDR ran on a progressive agenda

which continued during his administration. A heavily Democratic

Congress passed the New Deal programs, and a reform-minded

president enthusiastically signed bill after bill. Several FDR

appointees incorporated Social Gospel principles in their

policies. Leading the charge was Harry Hopkins, who managed the

relief efforts.23 The New Deal brought about labor reform with

the Wagner Act, social security as a safety net for the elderly,

and other progressive ideas the Social Gospel believers advocated

for many years.

Another voice for reform within the Christian theological

community would bring a new “realism” to the Social Gospel’s

Kingdom of God approach during the New Deal. Reinhold Niebuhr23 “In common with Brain Truster Adolph Berle, future treasury secretary HenryMorgenthau Jr., and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, Hopkins was steeped in the Social Gospel Tradition. Earnest, high-minded, and sometimes condescending, the Social Gospelers were middle-class missionaries to America’s industrial proletariat.” David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: the AmericanPeople in Depression and War, 1929 – 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 146.

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critiqued Rauschenbusch’s passive ideology as too timid during an

economic crisis harming the aged, poor and unemployed.24 In 1932

Niebuhr campaigned for Congress as a Socialist. Shortly

thereafter he wrote Moral Man and Immoral Society arguing socialist

Christian policies should be incorporated in government policy.

Unlike Rauschenbusch before him, Niebuhr argued politics was all

about the struggle for power and equality. He argued the liberal

Christian attempt to change society from the outside was futile.

Instead to save society from fascism, the West must embrace

radical state socialism. Following the secular political

philosopher, John Dewey, Niebuhr argued authentic democracy

required democratic socialism and redistribution of wealth from

the rich to the poor.25 Niebuhr also argued private property,

the cornerstone of capitalism, was America’s root problem.26

World War II changed the reformers. Ever the realist,

Niebuhr changed his political colors after World War II and the

defeats of “socialist liberalism” by establishing the Americans

for Democratic Action, an organization formed to advocate

24 Dorrien, 46 – 47.

25 Dorrien, 35.26 Ibid., 37.

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“welfare-state capitalism.” In a sense, Niebuhr had, like other

New Dealers, refocused his energies to changing the structure of

capitalism through reform rather than radical change. A

transition had occurred, and Christian activists sought novel

areas to spread their message. Some shifted their focus to

support equality among the races.27

While there had long been black rights advocates, the civil

rights movement began in earnest in the early 1950s. Spurring

this development was the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in

Brown v. Board of Education.28 Reversing almost a century of

precedent, the Supreme Court held segregation by itself was

harmful to black students and therefore unconstitutional even if

separate schools contained equal facilities and teachers.

According to the Court, segregation was inherently unequal.

Following on the heels of Brown, boycotts against local

segregated public facilities began in the south. The most

forceful spokesman for this movement was the Reverend Martin

Luther King, Jr. His writings and speeches used Social Gospel

27 Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Random House, Inc. 1995), 168.28 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

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principles combined with natural rights theory and civil

disobedience, providing a rich religious background for King's

social justice theories.

King was admitted to Morehouse University at age fifteen.

During his time there, he was taught by its President Benjamin E.

Mays and Professor George D. Kelsey, whose weekly lectures on the

Social Gospel, King attended. In 1948, King obtained a Bachelor

of Arts degree in sociology. He then enrolled at the liberal

Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.29 King’s formal

theological journey began there where he earned a Bachelor of

Divinity degree in 1951. Rauschenbusch’s works were standard

reading for Crozer students like King, who wanted to learn more

about the scriptural underpinnings for Baptist’s churches, like

the one his father had when he was growing up.30

Rauschenbusch’s Theology for the Social Gospel particularly

intrigued King because it argued society must be changed to

reflect egalitarian Christian values, a Kingdom of God on

earth.31 King’s favorite professor at Crozer was George W.29 Robert James Scofield, “King’s God: The Unknown Faith of Dr. Martin LutherKing, Jr., Tikkun (Nov/Dec. 2009), 51.30 Noel Leo Erskine, King among the Theologians (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1994), 6.31 Rauschenbusch, Theology, 246.

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Davis, an evangelical liberal. King heard his lectures on

realism, human pain as the ongoing reality. King came to accept

the conclusion the church’s purpose is to reduce suffering by

changing the economic balance, to be a redemptive force in

society.32 The moral order must include the change in society

for equality and justice because God controls the universe. “As

we struggle to defeat the forces of evil, the God of the universe

struggles with us.”33 King, like Rauschenbusch before him,

argued for changing America to an egalitarian society, current

justice now and not at some later stage in history or in heaven.

King started his ministry by becoming a spokesperson for

blacks during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. His opposition to

segregated public transportation and restaurants spread to Selma

and other cities. Arrested for advocating non-violent civil

disobedience, he wrote the Letter from a Birmingham Jail setting out

alternative natural law justification for violation of

segregationist policies. In it, he returned to the Social Gospel

argument requiring the church to be a contemporary force for

32 Evans, Loc. 2450.33 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Strength to Love,” A Testament of Hope, Ed. JamesWashington (San Francisco: Harper 2004), 83- 85.

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reform to release the oppressed by enforcing their natural right

to freedom.

After his release from jail, King led a march on Washington

on August 28, 1963. His I Have a Dream Speech, combining Christian

theology with references to the Emancipation Proclamation and the

Declaration of Independence, startled many when he said blacks

were not free because their color stained their status. He said

he dreamed of an America where "children would be judged not by

their color but by their character." Many credit the passage of

the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act at least in part, to King's

leadership and evangelical message. Even though he won the Nobel

Peace Prize in 1964, he was persecuted in some quarters (most

notably by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover), then assassinated by

James Earl Ray in Memphis in 1968. Before his death, King gave a

series of sermons now incorporated in book form.34 In these

sermons, King expressed the need for immediate social reforms to

solve the underlying economic problems such as those leading to

the race riots in 1967. In Rauschenbusch like language, King

said:

34 Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967, Kindle E-Version 2010).

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We are demanding an emergency program toprovide employment for everyone in need of ajob or, if a work program is impracticable, aguaranteed annual income at levels thatsustain life in decent circumstances…Thedeveloped industrial nations of the worldcannot remain secured islands of prosperityin a seething sea of poverty…Prosperity glutsthe middle and upper classes, while povertyimprisons more than thirty million Americansand starvation literally stalks rural areasof the South.35

The early 1960s Civil Rights Movement was dominated by King,

but after his death the Black Power movement carried on his

liberation message. King’s words resonated among black

theologians. One important voice was James H. Cone who called

his ideology liberation theology.36 He claimed black people were

the most oppressed among all peoples; therefore, Jesus must be on

their side since they were the “blessed poor.” Cone argued

before anyone can claim to be a real Christian, she must join the

cause, taking whatever steps necessary to cure society’s

maltreatment of the aged, poor and ill. Reflecting Anabaptist35 Ibid., Loc. 162 – 245.36 Gustavo Gutierrez articulated scriptural basis for liberation principles applied to socio-economic conditions. Black liberation theology refined Jesus’ teaching in light of the demands of social and political forces during the Civil Rights Movement. See Edward Antonio, “Black Theology,” The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, Ed. Christopher Rowland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, Kindle E-book Ver. 2009).

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millennialism, the oppressed become empowered because the Kingdom

of God is at hand. The Bible is all about God’s work to relieve

the misery of the people. “God is a God of liberation, who

speaks to the oppressed and abused, and assures them that divine

righteousness will vindicate their suffering… It is in this light

that black theology is affirmed in a twentieth-century analysis

of God’s work in the world.”37 For Cone, the segregated nature

of U.S. society left the oppressed no alternative but demand

radical transformation of society. Citing King’s ministry, Cone

professed:

The very existence of black theology isdependent on its ability to relate itself tothe human situation unique to oppressedpersons generally and blacks particularly…Asa prophet, with a charisma never beforewitnessed in this century, King preachedblack liberation in the light of Jesus Christand thus aroused the spirit of freedom in theblack community.38

Cone inspired many black preachers and ministers with his

liberation theory. Jeremiah Wright, presidential candidate Barack

Obama’s former pastor in Chicago was one who took up Cone’s

37 James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: Orbis Books, 1970, 1986), 31.38 Ibid., 37.

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challenge. Wright’s comments on white oppression were seen by

some as highly controversial. Wright’s inflammatory language

heatedly condemned segregation and suppression by white corporate

America. He said: “’Not God Bless America”’ God Damn America!

That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God Damn

America for treating her citizens as less than human.”39

Professor Frank argues Wright’s message was well grounded in

Exodus and the Jewish prophetic tradition requiring the clergy to

criticize the state for ignoring social problems.

While Obama renounced Wright’s strident language describing

white society in the U.S., he accepted other parts of the Trinity

United Church of Christ’s liberation theology. He adopted the

Social Gospel message, when he uttered the following words,

repeated over and over during the 2008 campaign:

In the end, then, what is called for isnothing more, and nothing less, than what allthe world's great religions demand - that wedo unto others as we would have them do untous. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripturetells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Letus find that common stake we all have in one

39 David A. Frank “The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ Address, March 18, 2008, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2009, 178.

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another, and let our politics reflect thatspirit as well.40

Obama’s rhetoric is placed well within the Social Gospel

tradition. In his A More Perfect Union speech he refused to condemn

Reverend Wright because he was the “man who helped introduce me

to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our

obligations to love one another, to care for the sick and lift up

the poor… I can no more disown [Wright] than I can disown the

black community.”41 Later in the campaign Obama was asked to

explain comments about his faith. During a NPR radio broadcast

he said: “My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray

all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out

and do the Lord’s work.”42

Obama never accepted church hierarchy and formalism but from

his early days in Chicago recognized the need to work for the40 Barack Obama, "A More Perfect Union" Constitution Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 18 March 2008.41 Ibid. During 2007 in the tour described as the “40 Days of Faith and Family” in South Carolina, candidate Obama gave a number of speeches in churches. During one speech, Obama urged the parishioners to use the government and community services so: “We can create a kingdom right here on earth.” The speech is repeated in the “KHOW’s Caplis gets Obama ‘kingdom on earth’ quote wrong” Colorado Independent by Joseph Boven, (September 30, 2010).42 Roundtable, Weekend Edition, National Public Radio, 13 April 2008. At his acceptance speech in Denver on August 28, 2008 he said: “That's the promise ofAmerica, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also riseor fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, Iam my sister's keeper.”

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oppressed in the community. Rauschenbusch’s sectarianism and

pietism seem clear in his rhetoric as well as his actions. Most

recently Obama commented on the state of the economy and how

faith relates to government policy to solve societal problems.

He said: “We can't leave our values at the door.” Reiterating

the Social Gospel’s biblical proscriptions he argued: “But part

of that belief comes from my faith in the idea that I am my

brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper; that as a country,

we rise and fall together. I'm not an island…It's also about the

biblical call to care for the least of these -- for the poor; for

those at the margins of our society.” Obama claimed: “we all

understand that these values cannot truly find voice in our

politics and our policies unless they find a place in our hearts.

The Bible teaches us to ‘be doers of the word and not merely

hearers.’” He echoed Rauschenbusch’s words when he claimed:

“We're required to have a living, breathing, active faith in our

own lives. And each of us is called on to give something of

ourselves for the betterment of others -- and to live the truth

of our faith not just with words, but with deeds.”43

43 President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., 2 February 2012.

23

If Rev. Wright's comments broadcast during this contentious

election year provoke a response by the Democrats challenging

candidate Romney’s Mormon ideas, historians may want to take

notice. The debates between advocates of Black Liberation

Theology and Mormonism could become a major distraction for both

political camps, when the economy is the major election issue

according to most polls. On the other hand, a discussion of each

candidates' religious beliefs, if their economic policy is

affected by such beliefs as President Obama sometimes admits, may

actually provide the public useful information relating to social

bases for government action. Exploring the differences between

Christian Socialism and Mormon Work Ethics may provide the voting

public elemental context and background on each parties' proposed

policies and the effect on economic growth of the competing

philosophies.

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