Understanding the nature of relationships between Christian organizations and one another as well as with non-Christian organizations can often be a difficult task. This is particularly true within the Baptist context, in which each church can function independently from the larger associational and denominational body.
After just over two weeks in New York City working with Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries, a non-profit organization of Metro Baptist Church, I have witnessed and participated in a number of different partnerships. In the first place, my placement at RMM stems from a partnership with the Alliance of Baptists and the United Church of Christ. These two denominational bodies have come together to place individuals in locations across the country serving different religious communities in various capacities.
Andrew Gardner
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Another partnership between RMM and the secular non-profit agency New York Cares provides volunteers to help staff numerous social programs that take place at the church throughout the week. Without these volunteers, many of these programs including the food pantry and after school programs would struggle to function effectively day in and day out. Partnerships are extremely vital to the life and ministry of Metro Baptist Church.
The Christian desire to partner with other religious organizations as well as secular organizations, however, is not entirely a new phenomenon. While the First and Second Great Awakenings are generally accepted as two of the most influential events that shaped the religious landscape of America, some scholars identify the early 20th century as another period of religious awakening in America. Through the influence of social gospel advocates, including Walter Rauschenbusch, for whom RMM is named, the social gospel galvanized a spiritual awakening that focused religious attention on the needs of society.
The social gospel’s desire to alleviate societal needs transcended the doctrinal boundaries held inherently by many denominational structures. This transcendence led to a great desire for Christian unity revolving around a collective understanding of social action. In 1908, the Federal Council of Churches (known today as the National Council of Churches) was formed, embodying a quest for greater unity among Christian groups.
Walter Rauschenbusch was a strong supporter of the Federal Council of Churches, and gave a keynote address at the council’s quadrennial meeting in Chicago in 1912. In this address, Rauschenbusch noted the problem of individualism within American Christianity. For Rauschenbusch, understandings of individual salvation were important within Christianity, but so was social salvation. A simplistic understanding of individual salvation disconnected from any understanding of social salvation perpetuated sectarian attitudes embodied in doctrinal beliefs. The strength of social salvation served to perpetuate a desire for unity and solidarity embodied in the Kingdom of God.
Social salvation, however, was not merely achieved through acts of social service. In his address to the FCC he said: “We want more than social service; I am not satisfied with the term. A man might render social service who was at the same time defrauding people. … We want not only social service, but social repentance; we want social shame; we want social conversion; we want social regeneration.”
For Rauschenbusch, social salvation affected every facet of society revolving around collective action and practice. This did not replace the old system of individual salvation, but placed an additional responsibility for individuals to work toward the societal good.
This understanding of social salvation cuts across denominational barriers and provides an avenue for groups to partner together in order to achieve more than they could on their own. This understanding of social salvation remains alive to this day in places like Metro Baptist Church.
Walter Rauschenbusch’s emphasis both on individual and social salvation provides helpful ways to think about and question the ways in which Christians today work together. Individual salvation does not provide the only imperative for creating and maintaining cooperation and partnership among Christian churches and organizations. Social salvation and desire to aid the least of these within society provides another motivation for cooperating and partnering with Christian and non-Christian organizations alike.
Perhaps by providing some distinction between individual and social salvation, we may begin to create a clearer and more beneficial understanding of cooperation, partnership and even denomination. We may not agree with another organization’s understanding of individual salvation, but perhaps our desire to bring about social salvation aligns with their mission. What possibilities could stem from this shared conviction? If the inverse were true and we agreed on an understanding of individual salvation but disagreed on the subject of social salvation, what then?
Through emphasizing the often-neglected understanding of social salvation, we may begin to realize the complex and exciting possibilities for partnership with not only other Baptist churches, but also secular and non-Christian organizations. This two-pronged approach (individual and social salvation) for understanding the purpose of the Christian witness allows us ask further questions about what it means to live out our faith denominationally, cooperatively and individually.
Andrew Gardner (abgardner@email.wm.edu), a student at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, is spending the summer working at Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries, a social advocacy group affiliated with Metro Baptist Church in New York City. From time to time he will be writing about his experience.