An Evangelical Social Gospel?

      Finding God’s Story in the Midst of Extremes

      Tim Suttle

      CASCADE Books • Eugene, Oregon

      AN EVANGELICAL SOCIAL GOSPEL?

      Finding God’s Story in the Midst of Extremes

      Copyright © 2011 Timothy L. Suttle. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-541-4

      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Suttle, Timothy L.

      An evangelical social gospel? : finding God’s story in the midst of extremes / Timothy L. Suttle.

      xviii + 106 p. ; 23 cm. — Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 13:978-1-61097-541-4

      1. Evangelicalism—United States. 2. Social Gospel. 3. Rauschenbusch, Walter, 1861–1918. I. Title.

      BX6495 R3 S75 2011

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      “Combining elements of history, theology, and autobiography, Tim Suttle has written a thought-provoking book that serves as a fresh assessment of Walter Rauschenbusch for the twenty-first-century church. In an age when many Christians use labels such as ‘evangelical’ and ‘liberal’ in an uncritical fashion, Suttle calls upon his audience to reflect on how a recovery of the past can lead to a fresh understanding of Christianity today. While written primarily with an evangelical audience in mind, Suttle’s study provides a welcome perspective not only on Walter Rauschenbusch and the social gospel, but on how Christianity in America might unfold over the course of the next several decades.”

      —Christopher Evans

      author of Liberalism Without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition

      “Every once in a while, as we journey in faith, we will discover the kind of guide who not only helps us find our way, but our voice. Tim Suttle has not only found his way further into God’s Kingdom, but he has discovered his own voice by rediscovering a like-minded pastor, theologian, and fellow traveler, in Walter Rauschenbusch. Today, in the footsteps of Rauschenbusch, Tim has found a way to ‘reconnect’ the personal nature of the Gospel that has become unhinged from the Gospel’s corporate and communal nature in the Church of Jesus Christ. Every page of this book burns with the fervent love of God, and immediately, one begins to hear in the infectious words of a compassionate pastor, the unswerving conviction of a prophet, beckoning the whole ‘people of God,’ and not just the wandering individuals of the Church with their private experience(s) of grace, to join together in the transforming power of God’s mission to reconcile the whole world. After all, says Tim, ‘the nexus of the personal and corporate is where all the power is.’ Yes, a recovery of the Gospel is underway in the Church because these two faithful pastors and prophetic voices have already seen ahead of the rest of us, and now, they are calling the Church to ‘run further up and further in’ the Kingdom of God.”

      —K. Steve McCormick

      William M. Greathouse Chair of Wesleyan-Holiness Theology, Nazarene Theological Seminary

      “In this remarkable and enjoyable book Tim Suttle draws on the theology of Walter Rauschenbusch in offering a holistic account of the Gospel that is truly good news for the world. In so doing he reminds us that the invitation to follow Jesus and participate in the mission of God involves all that we are in an effort to create a society in which the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven.”

      —John R. Franke

      author of Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth

      “An Evangelical Social Gospel? is a probing and passionate call to Christians and churches to move beyond our one-sided individual relationship with God to equally include relationship with others and responsibility for the wider community. Suttle, using the writings and life of Rauschenbush and his own disquiet as a pastor, stirs us to discomfort at our self-centered complacency and co-option by culture, and moves us to redefine ‘thy Kingdom come on earth as in heaven’ as a call to relationships and transformation of our communities. Transformation goes beyond charity to seeking change in the unjust social structures (public education, prisons, etc). An exciting, challenging, biblically based read that will change your faith, thinking, and action.”

      —Mary Nelson

      Founder

      Bethel New Life, CCDA

      For Kristin, Nicholas, and Lewis—

      whose love is a sure sign of the Kingdom.

      Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

      This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

      God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

      We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

      —1 John 4:7–21

      Foreword

      Last year I received an email from a young minister that contained the unlikely introduction: “I’m a pastor, a student at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, and a fan of Walter Rauschenbusch.” And so began my journey with Rev. Tim Suttle, whose remarkable book you hold in your hand.

      Why was Tim’s introduction so unlikely? Not for itself alone, but because the more I learned about Mr. Suttle and his evangelical upbringing, his Christian rock fame, and his successful nondenominational Church plantings, the more I became aware that we were—supposedly—from two different “camps” in the theological divide that had separated Christians like Tim and me for a long time.

      As the narrative goes, one hundred years ago (give or take a decade) American Protestants split into two oddly opposing factions with Mainline churches on one side and Evangelicals on the other. Common wisdom held that the mainline churches only cared about social justice and evangelicals only cared about individual salvation. Each side painted the other with increasingly broad and clumsy strokes, resulting in mutual suspicion and even adversarial relationships.

      One of the figures who became associated with this parting of the ways was my great-grandfather,