An Evangelical Social Gospel?. Timothy L. Suttle
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for the encouragement of Steve McCormick, Andy Johnson, and Ron Benefiel, I would have never had the courage to undertake this project. They cannot be held accountable for what follows here, but none of this would have materialized were it not for their friendship, guidance, and skill as teachers. Steve McCormick has gone above and beyond what a professor should be expected to do in order to help me cut my theological teeth. He encouraged me to find my voice and reminded me that writing is mainly about fighting your own demons. For his great scholar’s mind and pastor’s heart I will be forever thankful. Isaac Anderson edited the book proposals for this project. He helped me to refine the scope of the book and listened to me blather on about Walter Rauschenbusch for many a night. I remember several conversations during which Isaac reminded me the good news must always be personal. Those conversations have undoubtedly found their way into this work. My good friend and colleague Scott Savage has pushed me to think theologically and integrate theology and the practice of ministry. I have road-tested nearly all of my illustrations and major points with Scott, who helped me to pick them apart and refine my thinking. Scott has offered critique and encouragement in equal parts and has made the writing process a little less lonely. Thank you to Ryan Green, Todd Way, and Chaim Carstens for the many trips to Denny’s and for letting me take more than my turn to talk. Thank you to my parents and siblings. Your lives, lived in fidelity to the gospel, bear witness to the rich heritage we all inherited from the Suttle and Stith families.
This book’s argument owes so much to so many people. I’m very thankful to Paul Raushenbush, who let me sit on Walter and Pauline Rauschenbusch’s couch in the Brandeis summer home and gave me the pre-game inspiration and direction I needed to launch into this project. Paul has been gracious with his time and lavish with his encouragement and I’ve thought about him and his family often while writing this book. That the Rauschenbusch legacy of Christian social activism lives on, even to the present generations of the family, is a testament both to the greatness of Walter Rauschenbusch and to the integrity and purpose with which they have all lived their lives. I must say thank you also to Stanley Hauerwas and Brian McLaren for their encouraging reviews of the rough draft. I am indebted to Paul Minus and Christopher Evans for teaching me about Rauschenbusch’s life. Dr. Evans took the time to correspond with me about the book, and encouraged me to write it. His biography of Rauschenbusch, The Kingdom Is Always But Coming, remains the definitive work on Rauschenbusch’s life.
Were it not for the generosity of the Louisville Institute, this book might never have been written. Their Sabbatical Grant for Pastoral Leaders gave me and my family the opportunity and environment we needed in order to make our family’s sabbatical and my manuscript production a simultaneous reality. In particular the hospitality and resources they made available during the SGPL Consultation was critical for me. Also thanks to Martha and our friends at the Wellfleet, MA, Public Library, where much of this manuscript was produced. Thanks to Rick and Dawn Mundy and KC Creative. Dawn did the copy-editing for the manuscript.
A special thank you goes to Jeff Suttle and Bill Hill, who read all of my rough drafts and made extensive contributions and suggestions at every stage. You are two of the most intelligent and insightful people I’ve ever known. You serve as excellent models for how the lay-person should engage in mission. Jeff and Bill both made careful comments on every single chapter, offering brilliant suggestions at critical points in the writing process. They helped me figure out how to say what I actually meant to say. Their friendship and encouragement was matched only by their unselfish dedication of their time. I am so grateful to you both.
It is a true privilege to be a part of the staff, elders, and members of Redemption Church in Olathe, KS. You guys are the stuff church-dreams are made of. I thank you for allowing me to be your pastor, for allowing me the space to read and study and do serious theological reflection without having to leave the local church, and for allowing me to take a sabbatical with my family. Mostly I thank you for your pursuit of the Kingdom of God and for your fidelity toward each other and the Mission of God. I celebrate your love of Christ and the gospel in these pages. I hope this book sounds familiar—because it is an attempt to describe what you already are. You have given me a vision of how the church can be the church. Here’s to many, many years of being caught up in the mission of God with the Redemption Church family.
My final thank you is reserved for Kristin, Nicholas, and Lewis Suttle. No one who hasn’t done it before can ever fully appreciate what it means to marry a pastor. You bear much of the burden, and get none of the credit. Everything I know about fidelity and faithfulness I’ve learned from you, Kristin. You are an incredible wife and mother, and you embody all of what this book is about. I thank you for the countless conversations which were forced upon you during the writing process. I don’t know how you did it, but you always seemed excited to have them, even when they got in the way of our “normal” lives. Your keen insights, especially after the first few chapters were written, sent the project in a whole different direction. Your constant reading and listening along the way left your fingerprints all over this book, and for that I promise to share all of the royalties with you. To Nicholas and Lewis, I thank you for allowing this book to intrude on upon our vacations, sabbaticals, weekends, and evenings together. You guys are the very definition of unconditional love. I pray that you will never know single a day that you don’t feel a part of the people of God, and that you will experience the indescribable joy of peace with God, with yourselves, with other people, and with the world around you. You made our summer of writing, exploring, and playing in Cape Cod a real season of Grace. In my memory you will always be my sweet little boys—Prince Caspian and King Edmund—with toy swords, helmets, and towels wrapped around your shoulders as capes, fighting the enemies of Aslan in the backyard. May you always know how much your parents love you, and may you always pursue God’s Kingdom and have courage to run “further up and further in!”
Introduction
I have a friend named Sam. She grew up going to church, and has always been an avid reader and a bit of a theology buff. I used to tell her that she was too rigid and closed off concerning new theological ideas. She used to tell me I was too nutty, and although we were friends, I think she viewed me with suspicion. I used to think Sam saw her theology as if it were a bucket full of little building blocks like the little ones my kids used to play with, the ones that have letters painted on two sides. Sam spent her whole life collecting these little blocks to put in her theological bucket. She’d go to Sunday school and pick up a block. She’d read a book and get another block. All through her life these blocks would come together from all sorts of different places—moms and dads, pastors, youth groups, college bible studies, books, songs, movies—each of them contributing to this theological bucket.
As she grew older, the game shifted for Sam. Somewhere in her early twenties she went from picking up new blocks for her theological bucket to examining the blocks she already had in there. Sam would still try to cram a new block in the bucket every once in awhile, but for the most part she would encounter things which forced her to pull out an old block and take a good hard look at it in order to decide where to fit it back in or whether to discard it altogether. Sam would read a book or see a film and be forced to dig around in the bucket, find the corresponding block and ponder its worth. Then she had to find a way to fit it back into the bucket without messing everything up.
Pretty soon the bucket was crammed to the top and packed tight. And every time she came across something which corresponded to a block in her bucket she had to answer a few important questions: “Is it really worth digging through all of these blocks to consider the worth of any single one? How will I ever get them back inside the bucket if I do this? What happens if they don’t fit afterwards?” More often than not, the answer was, “No, it’s not worth digging through the bucket, it might mess up my well ordered system.” So Sam started to become more and more closed off to things which might challenge her way of thinking.
This worked okay until Sam started to encounter serious pain and suffering. First, she got married, and then her husband cheated on her with a colleague at work. That same year she found out her mom had cancer. Through her divorce and the lengthy illness up until her mom’s death, Sam held on to that bucket like it was full of gold bars. She thought it was that bucket full of theology which would get her through. The day her mom died, Sam was alone with her in the hospital room and she bore witness to her mom’s