When Christian Evangelicals Loved Socialism - JSTOR Daily 🔗 ✝️ 🇺🇸 🗽 ⚒

At the turn of the twentieth century, American Christian evangelicals, led by Pastor Walter Rauschenbusch, were at the forefront of socialism.

Socialism was seen as a threat to the church because it ‘offered the zeal, symbols, and sense of participation in a world transforming cause often associated with Christianity itself,’ notes Dorn.
In response, Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist pastor ministering to the poor on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, proposed an evangelical viewpoint that strongly embraced socialist ideals.