WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH

Long before the Social Gospel was a hackneyed and confused term for everything from welfare work to labor unions, Walter Rauschenbusch was preaching social Christianity -- the kind of social gospel preached in Galilee two thousand years before this modern prophet. The poor, the sick, the underprivileged were his great concern and their cause was the socialism he fought to bring in -- not that of Marx He believed the change must come from within gradually, not from without by revolution. Socialism was not the end in itself, rather freedom, justice, democracy, and economic equality or opportunity. The biography of this man by his friend and secretary is a fine job, and his story, from a modest start in a struggling parish to a position of world importance, is an inspiring one. A book for the clergy, for social workers, professors or students of sociology.