What Would Walter Say?

If the Christian faith does anything, it should help us overcome the fear that is so prevalent in the world.

My hope is that for all the youth, and people of all ages for that matter, that I have ministered with during my time in vocational ministry . . . I hope I have been able to help instill a faith built upon hope and not fear. So many ministers and ministries these days are built upon scaring people into heaven . . . or out of hell. If we can just get them to say the sinner's prayer, it will all be okay is their line of thinking, without any regard for how that happens. The ends, in other words, justify the means.

It's easy to think that it's a sign of the times. But a guy named Walter shows us that is not so. Here is what he has to say:

"In the Old Testament we have a number of accounts describing how men of the highest type of God-consciousness made their fundamental experience of God and received their prophetic mission. In none of those cases did the prophet struggle for his personal salvation as later Christian saints have done. His woe did not come through fear of personal damnation, but through his sense of solidarity with his people and through social feeling: his hope and comfort was not for himself alone but for his nation. This form of religious experience is more distinctively Christian than any form which is caused by fear and which thinks only of self. It contains larger possibilities of personal growth and religious power."

Walter Rauschenbusch wrote these words 95 years ago in his book, A Theology for the Social Gospel (p. 20). It's amazing how much his words are similar to what many authors are saying these days, particularly in those in the Emergent Church and in similar circles. The reality, though, is the opposite. Rauschenbusch is not getting his due credit. People today are saying what he said years ago. But no one is noting it.

I have purposely not checked my Facebook News Feed for a while now. Things were starting to get ugly with the election on the horizon. People were beginning to make me angry; and I was beginning to think less of them. I can only imagine how ridiculous the posts were Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.

The blame is on them. But it's also on people and figures that they follow and listen to, particularly preachers. Preachers have created a fear among people in the pews about elections. They have made people think that the world is going to end if a particular candidate does not wind up in the White House, congress, etc. They have worked off of fear. And it worked. Or at least it worked to create fear in others.

But as Rauschenbusch shows us, the Christian experience is not caused by or grounded in fear. The Christian experience is grounded in hope. Hope not only for self; but hope for us all, together.