How the social gospel movement explains the roots of todays religious left

[Igel]

1. Most people forget the social gospel movement.

It's one of those things that if you know about, you know about it and it fits in where it needs to. If you don't know about you, you're not going to google anything like it to run into it. And most people these days, if there's something that is tangential to what they Really Need to Prove ignore it instead of exploring.

It was important as a predecessor of liberation theology and the Jesus Movement in the '60s, and all together they provided the template for other things that many objected to so strenuously for their blatant and so utterly unconstitutional attempt to mix church and state (like Christian reconstruction or the more general Religious Right).

As though social gospel and liberation theology didn't attempt the same things. Nobody's ever said that people have a problem being so preoccupied with their own faults that they simply don't bother noticing others'. Most hypocrisy, I prefer to think, is due to simple lack of mindfulness and observation skills.