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Perhaps one of the most influential theologians of the early twentieth century was Walter Rauschenbusch, who has been described as a prophet of one of the most influential ideas in theology in the early part of his era: the social gospel. He is the author of many influential writings. His most important book was Christianity and the Social Crisis, which was published in 1907 and made Rauschenbusch a very sought-after speaker. Additionally, his Christianizing the Social Order, Prayers for Social Awakening, and A Theology for the Social Gospel are also among his most influential writings.

However, Walter Rauschenbusch is only one person in a Rauschenbusch family legacy. Most do not know that Walter had two sisters: Frida Rauschenbusch, born in September 1855, and Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough, born in 1859. Both sisters would go on to do work within the field of social redemption. However, I think that Emma is perhaps the most interesting member of the Rauschenbusch family. In an autobiographical note to his wife Pauline, Walter would describe Emma as “a wild bumble bee. . . She was active physically, up to mischief, with an inclination to insist on her rights, and with a capacity for friendship and also for jealousy of others.”

Little did Walter know this “inclination to insist on her rights” would be something that Emma would do her for her entire life.  Her insistence on her rights would eventually expand to include all women. In her dissertation, A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Woman, she explored the life, writings, views and legacy of famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the theme of what she called the “emancipation of women.”

In the conclusion of her dissertation, Emma demanded that a woman “win for herself the rights to which she has claim as a human being.” She continued to long for and to fight for the day that to pass “when one human being could dictate to another: Thy rank in society, or in this case thy sex, robs thee of the opportunity of striving after the attainment of the highest possible degree of development of all thy faculties.” This, in an age in which the role of the woman in society was to keep the home and to bear children, was a radical idea. It still is today. Even today, Emma’s vision has not truly been realized. Even today there is a glass ceiling that keeps women from attaining the highest development and use of all of their abilities. “No!” cries Emma. Women are human beings too and thus deserve all of the rights pertaining to men as their equal. May we continue this fight today as we honor a mind well ahead of her time – and, perhaps, even our time, as well.

Andrew Scott

ABHS Research Assistant

 

Sources:

Christopher H. Evans, The Kingdom is Forever Coming:  A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004).

Title page from book drawn from Emma Rauschenbusch’s dissertation.  Google books link:  https://books.google.com/books?id=cIQEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

In the study of social Christianity, the family name “Rauschenbusch” is a familiar one. Most of the time, however, the surname is synonymous with only one first name: “Walter.” Walter Rauschenbusch was a great mind and social gospel innovator. However, I believe that his family is often overlooked in how they worked with and in social Christianity; or, at the very least, how they influenced Walter in his thinking.

His father, August (or Augustus) Rauschenbusch was a German Baptist evangelist and later teacher in the German Department of Rochester Theological Seminary, where Walter would later be educated. August’s ministry was certainly not based on a social gospel like Walter’s. His driving passion was to save the souls of individuals. He possessed a very intense personality and would be regarded by his peers as “a great man, a man of God.” However, his relationship with his family was one characterized by long periods of absence along with fits of rage when he was present.

There seems to be little known about Walter’s mother, Caroline Rauschenbusch, except that her marriage to August was very rough. Rauschenbusch biographer Christopher H. Evans notes that the marriage “was volatile and, at the minimum, verbally violent.” Walter would go to write later in life that his parents’ estrangement was one of “the great sorrows in my life.” However, most significantly, during Walter’s pastorate of the Second German Baptist Church in New York City from 1886-1897, Caroline Rauschenbusch filled the important social role of the pastor’s wife in the congregation. Walter was young and unmarried, so Caroline did help support Walter during his ministry in New York – a ministry that would shape his future thoughts as a social gospel innovator.

Walter’s oldest sister, Frida Rauschenbusch Fetzer, was born in September 1855. Christopher Evans notes that he did not develop a close relationship with Frida until his thirties. Not much is known about her. However, clues in a letter regarding her by Walter gives clues that she was a reformer in her own right. Rauschenbusch wrote to Reverend George Huntington:  “Mrs. Fetzer was not simply a wife and mother, but an active missionary force. She was, I suppose, the only college woman among the German Baptists, and she brought over the traditions of educated and progressive womanhood in America . . . She has for years edited the monthly paper of the young women’s organizations and has spoken and agitated wherever possible among the churches for organization and active participation of women in church life.” He goes on to conclude,“According to my judgment she has been more of a pioneering force than any of the American men.” She certainly seemed to have a passion for women and the active participation of women in the church.

I find his other sister, Emma Rauschenbusch Clough, to be perhaps the most interesting member of the family besides Walter himself. She was a missionary in the Telugu Mission in South India, where she educated girls and women. She also endured a major famine and witnessed a “second Pentecost,” when thousands of members of the Madiga clan where baptized. She worked with missionary – and, later, husband — John Clough to build Christianity into the social order of the people that she lived. If Walter discussed social Christianity, Emma actually did it. She earned a PhD degree and later authored two books: While Sewing Sandals and Social Christianity in the Orient (the authorship of which is attributed to her husband John Everett Clough). Emma Rauschenbusch is a woman that deserves more study and research as part of the Rauschenbusch family legacy.

Andrew Scott, ABHS Student Research Assistant

 

Sources:

Christopher H. Evans, The Kingdom is Forever Coming:  A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004)

Letter from Walter Rauschenbusch to George B. Huntingdon, April 21, 1913.  Walter Rauschenbusch Family Papers, RG 1003, box 36, folder 2.  American Baptist Historical Society, Atlanta, Georgia.

Image:  Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough, While Sewing Sandals (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1899).  Google Books:

July 6, 1849: the first Baptist church in California was organized in San Francisco by Osgood Church Wheeler.

July 13, 1813:  Adoniram and Ann Judson arrived in Rangoon, Burma, to begin missionary work.  Adoniram worked for 37 years in the mission field.  Ann died in 1826, and Adoniram married Sarah Boardman  (1803-1845) and then Emily Chubbuck (1817-1854).

July 19, 1651: John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall arrived in Lynn MA, and began preaching illegally.

July 27, 1707: The Philadelphia Baptist Association was founded as the first Baptist association in what became the United States.

July 31, 1861: Helen Barrett Montgomery (pictured above), the first woman president of the Northern Baptist Convention, was born in Kingsville, OH.  She was president in 1921-22.

The American Baptist Historical Society welcomes Rev. Dr. Priscilla Eppinger as the next Executive Director.  She will begin her duties on August 15.  Dr. Eppinger comes to the Historical Society from Graceland University Community of Christ Seminary in Lamoni, Iowa, where she has been Professor of Religion since 2002. She was educated at Agnes Scott College (BA), Andover Newton Theological School (M.Div), and Northwestern University and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (PhD). At Graceland University, she has been teaching religious studies, theology, and church history to seminary students and undergraduates.

Her roots in American Baptist Churches (ABC) life run deep, having served as a missionary to Zaire and on staff for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies.  She has also been a member of the General Board of ABC and the board of ABC Educational Ministries, as well as on the ABC biennial planning committee. As an ordained minister, she served churches in Massachusetts and Illinois.

A public welcome is being planned by the Board of Managers for Friday, September 30.

Throughout the history of the Christian religion, there have been different views of Jesus and his redeeming work. In fact, one man once said that “No individual, no Church, no age of history has ever comprehended the full scope of God’s saving purposes in Jesus Christ.” That man was Walter Rauschenbusch. Born on October 4, 1861 to German immigrants Augustus and Caroline Rauschenbusch in Rochester, New York, Rauschenbusch went on to become an advocate for a movement that would later be termed the “social gospel.”

This term, particularly in Rauschenbusch’s thought, was driven by one key concept: the Kingdom of God. Throughout his pastoral ministry in Second German Baptist Church in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen from 1886-1897, Rauschenbusch quickly began to realize that an individual conception of salvation and the kingdom was not enough for his congregation. He realized that the scope needed of this concept had to be broadened. Jesus prayed that God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. This concept of an earthly order of affairs shaped by the teachings of Jesus Christ continued to grow in Rauschenbusch’s writings and teachings at Rochester Theological Seminary where he taught from 1897 until his death in 1918.

In one of his first major published works, “The New Evangelism,” Rauschenbusch talks of the need for a new evangelism to rise up and replace the old evangelism. Rauschenbusch says that “It (the powerlessness of the old evangelism) lies in the fact that modern life has gone through immense changes and the Church has not kept pace with it in developing the latent moral and spiritual resources of the Gospel which are needed by the new life.” In this new life, Rauschenbusch argues, one needs to simply personal piety, e.g. going to church, staying sober, avoiding sexual promiscuity, and so forth.  But one must also attend equally to the social realm because choosing only personal sanctity allows one to contribute to an oppressive social system.

Rauschenbusch continued his life work attempting to flesh out this new evangelism that will only come when the church is open and observant to the developments that are happening in the current world around us. For Rauschenbusch himself, these developments were best found in communion with the working class factory worker in inhumane working environments, child labor, and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. What are our markers today? How can we, in the spirit of Rauschenbusch, look to create a more just society based upon the teachings of Jesus? How can we continue to plant the seeds of the kingdom in the soil of our current society for the Father to water? How can we continue the growth of the kingdom? These are questions that we must ask ourselves, for the Kingdom is always but coming.

Andrew Scott, ABHS Student Research Assistant

Source:  Christopher H. Evans, The Kingdome is Forever Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004).

4– In 1768 Five Virginia Baptists were imprisoned by the state for ‘disturbing the peace’.

9 – 1834, William Carey died at the age of 72, in his 42^nd year as a missionary to India.

16 – In 1636 the residents of Providence Plantations (RI) drew up a compact allowing religious freedom.

18 – In 1781 the Severns Valley Church was organized in Kentucky.  This was the first Baptist church west of the original 13 colonies.

19 – In 1809 First Baptist Church, Philadelphia, offered “brethren of color’ the use of its building.

22 – In 1875, Dong Gong was ordained to ministry in Portland, OR.  He was the first Asian-American ordained by Baptists.  He is pictured here.

 

Helen Barrett Montgomery (1861-1934) was born in Ohio, but her family moved to Rochester, NY, when she was 9  years old.  While she was at Wellesley she began the study of Greek, which she continued for the rest of her life.  She was very active in the Lake Avenue Baptist Church, organizing and leading a women’s Bible Class which she taught for 44 years.

Her concern for social reform and civic causes grew out of her biblical and theological understandings.  As the first woman elected to public office in Rochester (twenty years before women got the vote), she served on the Rochester School Board and served for 10 years.

While the cause of woman’s suffrage was important to her, most of her efforts were given to the women’s missionary movement.  She wrote many books, led many missionary groups, and traveled to many mission fields.

In 1921 she was elected the president of the Northern Baptist Convention and presided over the 1922 convention. As the first women president of any protestant denomination, she led the Baptists through controversy with grace and prayers.

ABHS has a booklet about her life called Envoy of Grace, by Conda Delite Hitch Abbot.  It is available for $5.  Order by sending a check to ABHS, 3001 Mercer University Drive, Atlanta, GA 30341.

ABHS has Black History month resources including a bulletin insert entitled “Liberty To Vote,” that can be downloaded from our ‘For Churches’ page. In addition a recent issue of the American Baptist Quarterly (Vol. 2, summer, 2013) has articles related to black history. Individual issues of the ABQ can be purchased by calling ABHS at 678-547-6680.

Recently we found a volume written by George W. Williams (1849-1891) who was born in Pennsylvania (a free state), and was a soldier before entering Howard University in 1869. As the first black student at Newton Theological Institute he graduated in 1874, and was ordained and installed as the pastor of Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston. After moving to Ohio, he was elected to the House of Representative of the Ohio General Assembly for a term.

His enduring legacy is as an antislavery activist and writer, having authored the first history of African Americans in the United States. ABHS has a first edition of this book entitled History of the Negro Race in America 1619-1880 which includes a chapter on ‘Colored Baptists of America.’ This two volume   book can befound on-line at https://archive.org/details/historyofnegrora00willrich.

 

He is also notable for his travels to the Belgium Congo in 1891, where he saw the horrible condition of slaves working on rubber plantations and wrote Open Letter to …Leopold, King of the Belgians.

The definitive biography of Williams is by John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography.

The accompanying photos come from the book History of the Negro Race in America (1882).

 

McAfee School of Theology student Traveous Adkins is working with ABHS’s rare book collection.  The goal is to put our books in an on-line catalog which can be accessed by researchers.  These books date from the early 1600s, and deal with religious matters primarily.  Church leaders spoke out on such issues as baptism, church membership and the evils of the day.  These books are considered rare because they are old, but also because there may be only one or two other copies in this country.  This work is part of  our campaign, At Your Fingertips, which is seeking donations with the goal to digitize parts of our collection.

Deborah Bingham Van Broekhoven will retire as executive director of the American Baptist Historical Society (ABHS) in August 2016.  Van Broekhoven   announced her plans at the annual ABHS Board of Managers meeting October 2nd.  The Executive Committee of the ABHS board is forming a search committee to conduct a nation-wide search for her successor.

“It has been a privilege to lead the Historical Society, “Van Broekhoven said.  “When I became executive director, the archives were located in two places, Valley Forge, PA, and Rochester, NY.  During my tenure, I was able to bring the two parts together and work through the move to the Atlanta campus of Mercer University.  We are now well settled in our new home and ready to move into another phase of our development.”  One unexpected benefit of the Atlanta location has been its convenience for visitors from Myanmar, who generally include in their U.S. itinerary a visit to ABHS, as well as some of the forty Atlanta-area congregations made up of refugees from Myanmar (also called Burma).

Van Broekhoven holds a doctorate in history from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and was a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University before being named executive director of ABHS in 1998.  She has been active in American Baptist congregations throughout her life, most recently as a member of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta.

At the last biennial, Van Broekhoven led the kick off of the At Your Fingertips campaign, the goal of which is to raise $550,000 to move the archives into the digital age.  “I am especially proud of the digital resources ABHS has been able to make available to researchers around the world, as evidenced in the special website created for the Judson Bicentennial, www.Judson200.org.”  Many of the images and documents scanned for the website were suggested by visitors from Myanmar (also called Burma).

 

“With our strong Board of Managers and staff, I’m confident that ABHS will make the history and archives of the American Baptist Churches and the Baptist World Alliance secure and available to researchers in digital forms both currently and in the future,” Van Broekhoven declared.  “I will miss the frequent contact with researchers from around the world,” she added, “but I am sure that my activities in retirement will include historical projects.”

 

The American Baptist Historical Society launched our At Your Fingertips: Archives for the 21^st Century campaign this June during our breakfast meeting at the 2015 Biennial Mission Summit in Overland, Kansas.   Thanks to those attending the event, along with the Society’s board of managers, staff, and friends, pledges for this campaign have already reached $245,000 – of which $200,000 is already in hand! We are well on our way to our goal of $550,000.

 A major gift of $125,000 has been given by the Bauer Foundation in memory of Dr. William and Maria Staughton, ancestors of Carol Bauer and founders of the modern mission movement. Another significant gift of $62,000 has come from a bequest by educator Shirley Jones, retired executive for the American Baptist Board of Educational Ministries.

At Your Fingertips: Archives for the 21^st Century is the American Baptist Historical Society’s new fund-raising campaign to make our rich Baptist heritage collections widely known and digitally available throughout the world. Particularly for those at the far-flung corners of the globe, digitization is key to an effective ministry. Consider this request received from a researcher working in Myanmar (Burma):

“I am the researcher compiling a book on the William Marcus Young missionary family who worked in Burma and China. I have recently returned from a research trip to the old mission stations in Keng Tung, Burma, and Banna, China. The church members there were very happy to host me and were overwhelmed when I showed them some of the images you sent to me two years ago of the very first Lahu and Wa converts. The Lahu . . . were almost in tears, saying, “We have been searching for a picture of this man for over 40 years and now you have brought it. God truly must have sent you here!” It was quite an amazing moment. They are devout Christians but have very little information about the history of their church and the first missionaries, so they have asked me to return next year and give seminars on the history of the Keng Tung church, which I am very excited about! …. Have any of these [historic documents] been digitized?”

With campaign support, the Historical Society can begin saying “Yes” to queries such as these–through our At Your Fingertips: Archives for the 21^st Century campaign. Campaign funds are needed to pay for the costs of adding an archivist for digital initiatives to our staff. For more information about the campaign, call the Historical Society at 678-546-6680 or go to the campaign web pages at http://abhsarchives.org.

Rev. Brooks Andrews recently retired as pastor of Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle, the same church his father, Emery Andrews (born in 1894), was serving when WWII began. Brooks was only a small child then, but remembers that the members of the congregation were forced into internment camps along with 100,000 other Japanese Americans. Emery Andrews and his family followed his congregation to Minidoka, the camp in Idaho, where he continued to minister to them.   Rev. Andrews worked for justice for the Japanese Americans who were stripped of their property and dignity.

Following the war, Emery Andrews became involved in the ‘House for Hiroshima’ project that built homes, day care centers and other structures in Hiroshima. He made trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1949 and 1951. During that time he kept a dairy, made a scrapbook and took many photographs.

This week, Brooks Andrews brought these remembrances of his father’s activities during the post war period to ABHS. He has donated them to the ABHS archives so that they can be made available to researchers.

by Shabria Caldwell

The American Baptist Churches USA has a rich history concerning its diversity, ranging from gender leadership to minority leadership. Ruth McKinney (1900-1966) is a proud representation of both as she is perhaps one of the most prominent names in ABC history. An influential speaker and leader, McKinney is the first Black woman to hold a top office in the American Baptist Convention.

McKinney’s roots were an early indication of her Baptist leadership. The daughter of a reverend, Annie Ruth Berry was born in Birmingham, Alabama to Reverend Samuel and Ada Virginia Berry. She was educated at both Spelman College and Columbia University. Ruth was working as a college teacher when she married her husband, Wade, in 1924.

Wade Hampton McKinney was born in Cleveland, Georgia, in 1892. He attended Atlanta Baptist College Academy, Morehouse College, and Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary. Furthermore, he served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Ruth and Wade McKinney can be reverenced as one of the many Black power couples of their time.

With the migration of African Americans to northern cities in the 1920s and 1930s in search of industrial work, many flooded into the Cedar-Central neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. This added to the congregational numbers of neighborhood churches. Most recognizable was Antioch Baptist Church because of its leadership role in the community. Antioch provided financial support for other neighborhood churches, and supported the NAACP.

Reverend Wade McKinney was called upon to lead Antioch Baptist Church in 1928. He is revered as one of the most important and influential leaders in Antioch’s history, serving the Church for 28 years. During that period, Ruth worked as a teacher at the Church School and also served as the youth choir director for 33 years.

Ruth and Wade were pivotal figures not only in the Christian Church community, but also within the African American community as civic leaders. In 1947, Reverend Wade worked to establish a credit union to aid returning African American veterans as well as local residents in securing loans. In addition, he served as a spokesman for the community, leading many voter registration campaigns and serving on the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury.

As the wife of an esteemed minister, and as an achieved and educated woman, Ruth became active in the affairs of religious organizations across the nation. She was in great demand as a speaker. Beginning in 1952, she began broadcasting 1-minute radio “Thot-O-Grams” which included brief, inspirational messages under the supports of the United Church Women of Cleveland.

In addition, McKinney was also a member of the vice presidents board in the National Council of American Baptist Women in the Division of Christian Service during the mid-50s. Her responsibilities included enlisting women in active service within the ministry.

Independently, McKinney saw the importance of the woman’s presence in the church. In the November, 1956 The American Baptist Woman newsletter McKinney wrote, “Many [women] merely have their names on the church roll; others, attend the Sunday worship service, but their service through any organization of the church is not given. Think of this great loss in women power!”

Photo credit:  McKinney, Ann Ruth Berry:  1953, by Herman Seid.  From the Cleveland Press Notable Blacks of Cleveland collection, Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections.  Courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project

Archivist Jan Ballard is speaking on June 5th about Japanese American history and resources for studying it at the American Baptist Historical Society.  Part of a conference session on Asian Baptists, Ballard’s topic comes from a recent film “A Church Stands With Its People,” produced by the American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS) in cooperationn with ABHS . (http://www.abhms.org/front_center_The_forgotten_PearlHarbor_story_2012.cfm).

The conference is a joint meeting of the Baptist History and Heritage Society and the Association of Librarians and Archivists at Baptist Institutions in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  For more information see the full conference program at http://www.baptisthistory.org/bhhs/.

Documenting American Baptist Ministry in World War II Internment Camps required digging into many parts of the library. One starting place was the records of John Thomas, Florence Rumsey, and Esther McCollough—home missionaries working with Japanese Americans through the program of ABHMS. Other valuable sources include the records of American Baptist missionaries to Japan, several of whom spent the war years teaching those incarcerated.

Records of the ministry of a Rev. Wada are also included in the ABHMS files. A minister and missionary for Japanese Baptist, Rev. Mashiko Wada (1880-1957), was a product of the Japanese church and American Baptist Foreign Mission Society work. At the invitation of the Los Angeles Baptist Mission and the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, Rev. Wada came to the United States in 1928, expressly to minister in the Japanese immigrant communities. Also instructive are the records of college students, including two children of Rev. Wada, who were able to leave the camps because of sponsorship by American Baptists. These scholarship students included a young Mari Yoriko Sabusawa, who later married the famous author James Michener.

 

 

The American Baptists’ first overseas mission was to Burma, in 1813.

It is due to our long history in Burma that the ABHS is now home to a range of photo collections from American Baptists who lived in Burma.  On the Judson200 web site, we display a selection of these early images from three missionaries.

Sydney V. Hollingworth  was born and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He worked for the Superior Printing Company in Akron, Ohio before being sent to Burma, accompanied by his wife and their three children, by the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in 1921. He worked at the Mission Press in Rangoon (Yangon) and lived in the country until 1936.

Arthur E. and Laura H. Carson highlight the Chin people of the Haka Hills, where the Carsons established and operated a mission from 1899 until Arthur’s death in 1908.   After her husband’s death, Laura continued serving at the mission until 1924, when her own failing health compelled her to return to the United States

Elva Jenkins Hendershot  served from 1924 to 1927 as an American Baptist missionary nurse in Kengtung, a town in the Shan state of Burma.  She was given an  album of drawings by an artist from the nearby village of Yan Hlwa to thank her for caring for his sick wife.  Only a few examples of Shan albums still exist today, and of these, the 26-page album dated 1925 in the ABHS holdings is one of the most complete.  These albums comprise “illustrations of multiple ethnic groups, each represented by paired male and female figures in distinctive costumes, often holding an emblematic artifact which evokes a characteristic cultural practice.”

Click here for more information about the missionaries and to see the images preserved in the ABHS archives.

Catherine Raymond, from the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University, and Sherry Harlacher from Denison University Museum (Granville, OH), came to visit ABHS in order to look at one of the items in the collection of Elva Jenkins Hendershot.  After spending a day looking at the Shan Album of paintings from around 1900, Catherine wrote

 “Thank you so very much for this wonderful day at ABHS.  Your archives definitely deserves to be more known.  It was a real pleasure to finally see the album and share our expertise together.  I also enjoyed discovering some of the other treasurers of the ABHS, like the maps.”

The Shan Album has been digitized and will soon be available for viewing on the Judson200.org web site.