This is the first live Q&A for Theology for Troublemakers — the class Gary Dorrien, Aaron Stoffer, and I have been building for exactly this moment — and if the questions that came in after the first lecture are any indication, we’ve got a room full of people who came ready to learn. Gary is the Reinhold Niebuhr Chair at Union Seminary and has written more books and supervised more PhDs on the history of Christian social ethics in America than anyone alive. When Aaron said we could get Gary to join I was thrilled!

This session covered the ground the first lecture opened up: what the social gospel actually was and why it took forty years to get its name (Walter Rauschenbusch held out until 1917, and even then conceded reluctantly), what social crises made the movement urgent, and why the Black social gospel is — as Gary puts it without hesitation — the better side of it. We went deep on the moral formation of Ida B. Wells and Reverdy Ransom: Wells going to four or five church services on a Sunday, working through her own rage at the Eliza Woods lynching before she could write about it, and eventually being burned out of Memphis for telling the truth about what lynching was actually about. Ransom, Harriet’s son, clawing his way toward education in an Ohio that barely saw him, discovering socialist thought through George Herron’s underlined pages, hiding his theological liberalism from bishops for years. We talked about the organizing question — why Frederick Douglass was wrong about race-specific organizations, why the Afro-American League and Council kept collapsing, why Booker T. Washington was the most famous living American in 1900 and used every bit of that power to undermine protest organizations, and what finally made the NAACP stick. And we ended with Ransom’s late-life declaration that Africans and their descendants are the last spiritual reserves of humanity — part resignation, part prophecy, entirely worth sitting with.

Next week: Reinhold Niebuhr. Gary’s lecture is already on the resource page.

If you haven’t joined yet, come find us at www.HomebrewedClasses.com — it’s donation-based, including zero. You’ll get access to Gary’s full lecture series tracing the history of Christian social ethics in America, Aaron’s bonus interviews with leading scholars and activists, curated readings, discussion guides for small groups, and the online community. This is the class for right now.

Previous Episodes with Gary or Aaron

Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University. He is also the author of Anglican Identities: Logos Idealism, Imperial Whiteness, Commonweal Ecumenism, Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition, American Democratic Socialism and In a Post-Hegelian Spirit: Philosophical Theology as Idealistic Discontent. You won’t want to miss his upcoming theological memoir Over from Union Road My Christian-Left-Intellectual Life.

Aaron Stauffer is the Associate Presbyter for Congregational Vitality at Heartland Presbytery, and is an ordained Teaching Elder in the PC(USA), and was most recently was the associate director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Previously, he was the Executive Director and then Special Advisor of Religions for Peace USA, where he helped launch a national anti-Islamophobia program based in the southeast, along with organizing national senior religious leaders on issues of common concern such as mass incarceration, immigration and climate change.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves.What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and ...