The Kingdom is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch.

The Kingdom is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch. By Christopher H. Evans. Grand Rapids, MI: W. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004. 348 pp.

The Kingdom is Always but Coming, the latest addition to the successful Library of Religious Biography from William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, is the most recent and best-researched biography of the Social Gospel advocate Walter Rauschenbusch that has been produced. Christopher H. Evans, associate professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York, has accomplished with this biography what previous biographers have not. Evans presents Rauschenbusch's life and thought within the broader context of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus, The Kingdom is Always but Coming is not just a biography of Rauschenbusch; it is a book about the Social Gospel with Rauschenbusch as the protagonist.

The book has several strengths. First, while Evans does recognize that Rauschenbusch was a product of his times, he does not neglect his shortcomings. Evans astutely points out the greatness of Rauschenbusch while also pointing to some of his weaknesses, such as his racist tendencies, his anti-Catholicism, and his paternalistic attitude toward women. Evans also does a good job of exploring Rauschenbusch's Baptist confessional perspective that at times sounded triumphal.

Evans's command of the massive Rauschenbusch Family Manuscript Collection housed in the Samuel Colgate Historical Library at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School is this book's most important asset. The reader becomes aware almost immediately that the author spent long hours researching this massive collection. The fruit of that labor provides this book a special "behind the scenes" look at the Rauschenbusch family. Evans moves beyond simply a mention of the Rauschenbusch family to provide an intimate portrait of Rauschenbusch and his relationships with his wife and children, relationships that at times became stressed.

Almost a century has passed since the death of Walter Rauschenbusch in 1918. However, he was such an important figure for shaping the theology and social Christianity of the twentieth century that his presence continues to be felt today. Evans, with this book, has provided a very important contribution to the historiography of the Social Gospel Movement and the life of Rauschenbusch. Scholars of American Religion in general and Baptist history in particular will find this a rewarding read.--Glenn Jonas, chair of the Department of Religion, Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina.