Tiger Woods ended his 11-year wait for a major on a dramatic final day at the Masters, seeing off Francesco Molinari and a host of other challengers in a fierce battle to claim his fifth green jacket – and first since 2005.
For a long time, the 43-year-old feared he might never play golf again but spinal fusion surgery back in 2017 kick-started an improbable comeback that culminated in a 15th Major as he rolled back the years at Augusta.
It was Molinari – who enjoyed an incredible 2018, winning The Open and becoming the first European to win five points in a talismanic display at the Ryder Cup – who started the day out in front on -13, with Woods and Tony Finau just two strokes behind.
To add to the intrigue, all three players went out together in the final group, with play starting significantly earlier than usual due to forecasted bad weather and thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Woods revealed that he set his alarm for 4am to get ready for the early start and there were a few cobwebs as he got his fourth round underway, carding back-to-back bogeys on the fourth and fifth holes.
Molinari, meanwhile, was his usual measure of calm and nerveless putting, at least up until the seventh hole when he recorded his first bogey in 50 holes – but bounced straight back with a birdie on the next.
Woods sensed his opportunity though, posting back-to-back birdies this time, and at the turn, there was just one shot between the two men with little threat, at this stage at least, of a charge coming from the chasing pack.
But Woods posted his third bogey at the start of the back nine to give Molinari breathing room once again heading into Amen Corner on an afternoon full of twists and turns, while Finau’s challenge never really got going, dropping down the leaderboard.
After both parring the testing 11th – Woods scrambling from the trees after a wayward drive – it was Molinari who made his first serious misstep at the 12th, sending his tee shot into the water as he recorded a double bogey to relinquish his lead for the first time since Saturday.
Just as the Italian was wilting, the chasing pack started to apply the pressure at last with a string of eagles; Bubba Watson and Patrick Cantlay at the 15th – the latter briefly leading on -12 – and Brooks Koepka following up a double bogey at the 12th with an eagle on the next hole.
Xander Schauffele carded five birdies over seven holes to join Cantlay at the top, but they weren’t alone for long as Woods and Molinari both made birdies at the 12th to set up a thrilling finale.
Although Molinari had started the day in control, with just a few holes left to play the leaderboard was becoming very crowded; three birdies in a row saw Dustin Johnson move to -12 seemingly out of nowhere, while Koepka also joined the leaders.
Unusually, it was the normally unflappable Italian who blinked first, clipping a tree at the 15th to land in the drink for a second time and posting another double bogey, dropping to -10 as his pursuit of the green jacket faded.
It was at this very moment that Woods began to take control, conjuring memories of past glories at the perfect time to birdie back-to-back holes on the 15th and 16th – his tee shot at the latter requiring a simple two foot tap in – and prompt huge roars from the watching fans around Augusta as he took a two-shot lead.
Woods, looking just like his old self in his trademark red top, maintained his composure on the final two holes, though the emotion overflowed as he sunk the biggest putt of his long and storied career to spark jubilant scenes of emotion, immediately running over to celebrate with his two children and mum. This one meant more, and, at long last, Tiger is truly back.


Performances and cheers echoed from the Tower as groups from around campus united Wednesday at the annual Texas Fight Rally to boost morale before Saturday’s Red River Rivalry football game.
For the first time in 30 years, the rally did not feature a torchlight parade. Texas Exes, who sponsors the event, called off the portion earlier this week in light of violence involving torch-bearing protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia in August.
Kim Gundersen, Texas Exes associate executive director, said the event was everything the alumni organization could have hoped for.
Cheerleaders, ROTC, band members and Bevo performed for hundreds of students to get the crowd ready for Saturday. Drum Major Jeff Bell said regardless of any changes, Longhorn Band remains the heartbeat of the event.
Trey Walton, Hellraisers spirit group member, has attended the rally for four years and said he was disheartened by the removal of the torchlight portion.
“I would just hope that they would continue the tradition, because it’s a tradition we’ve had for a long time and it adds to the atmosphere,” electrical engineering senior Walton said.
UT football head coach Tom Herman took the microphone to share his appreciation for the crowd’s support. He said it was the crowd’s energy that pulled the Longhorns through in double overtime at last week’s game.


Last October, Google unveiled an automatic camera called Google Clips. The Clips camera was designed to hold off from taking any picture until it sees the faces or frames it recognises as a good image. The intelligent camera has been designed to capture candid moments of familiar people and pets by using on-device machine intelligence. Google over the weekend began selling the camera priced at $249 (roughly Rs. 16,200), and, it's already 'out-of-stock' on Google's product store.
How does the Google Clips camera understand what makes for a beautiful and memorable photograph? In a blog post, Josh Lovejoy, UX Designer for Google, explained the process that his team used to integrate "human-centred approach" and an "AI-powered product". Google wants the camera to avoid taking a number of shots of the same subjects and find one or two good ones. With human-centred machine learning, the camera is able to learn and select photos that are meaningful to users.
In order to feed examples into the algorithms in the camera, to identify the best images, Google called in professional photographers. Google hired a documentary filmmaker, a photojournalist, and a fine arts photographer to gather visual data to train the neural network powering the Clips camera. Josh Lovejoy wrote, "Together, we began gathering footage from people on the team and trying to answer the question, 'What makes a memorable moment?'"
Notably, Google admits that training a camera like Clips can never be bug-free, regardless of how much data is provided to the device. It may recognise a well-framed, well-focussd shot but it could miss some important event. However, in the blog, Lovejoy says, "But it's precisely this fuzziness that makes ML so useful! It's what helps us craft dramatically more robust and dynamic 'if' statements, where we can design something to the effect of "when something looks sort of like x, do y."
The blog essentially describes how the company's UX engineers have been able to apply a new tool to embed human-centred design into projects like the Clips camera. In another blog post on Medium, Josh Lovejoy had explained the seven core principles behind human-centred machine learning.
It is also interesting to note that chief executive of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity, Elon Musk, back in October had taken a jibe at Google clips camera saying, "This doesn't even seem innocent."
Can Sea of Thieves be the Xbox One's No Man's Sky?


May 15 (Reuters) - Indian shares pared earlier gains to end largely flat on Tuesday after the main opposition Congress party said it would form an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) party to rival Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the assembly elections in the southern state of Karnataka.
BJP looked set to win the largest number of seats in the assembly elections in the state, which would give Modi momentum for a re-election bid next year and open the path for more reforms, which investors view as a positive for markets.
The broader NSE index closed down 0.04 percent at 10,801.85, while the benchmark BSE index ended 0.04 percent lower at 35,543.94.
Earlier in the session, both indexes rose over 1 percent to hit their highest in more than three months.
Tata Motors Ltd led losses on both indexes, falling as much as 5.5 percent to its lowest in over 2 years, before ending 4.2 percent lower.


‘STRANDED IN EARTH orbit’, ‘lost on arrival’, ‘flew past planet’, ‘lost near Phobos’… If you happen to be one of the thousand-plus candidates chosen for the 2025 ‘Mars One’ mission, perhaps you’d be best advised not to opt for ‘humankind’s 54-year history of attempted Mars missions’ as your choice of subject for bedtime reading.
Failures far outweigh the successes over the course our stormy half century affair with the Red Planet. However, that didn’t deter almost a quarter of a million people (including around 850 in Ireland) from applying for the chance to be one of just 20 chosen for the planned 55 million kilometre voyage.
1,058 hopefuls made it past the opening round, including three based in Ireland — of whom, the most high-profile has been Dublin-based scientist Dr Joseph Roche. The mild-mannered astrophysicist has been in high demand by media outlets since his name emerged on the ‘long-list’ at the start of the month, and he’s been dutifully doing the rounds ever since answering questions on the ambitious plan (as it’s a one-way mission, the most frequent question so far has been ‘why?’).
The initiative of entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp and scientist Arno Wielders, both from The Netherlands, the privately funded project aims to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars by 2025. The initial crew of four will be followed by four more the year after that, with more missions flying out at two-year intervals until 2032.
Of course, it’s not quite that simple — organisers estimate they need to raise around $6 billion in funding. It’s planned the project will raise most of the cash needed by selling TV rights for a reality show tracking the progress of the candidates.
Ahead of blast-off for the manned mission, there’s be a series of other launches — of satellites, supplies and finally ‘rovers’ designed to set up the outpost living quarters and other equipment.
To the casual observer, the plan may appear more than a little unlikely. Many space experts have also scorned the proposals — in particular the projected cost, which is just a fraction of NASA’s estimates for a Mars mission. Ethical issues have also been raised, as it’s been suggested the life-span of the successful applicants could be limited to less than a year — even if they manage to complete the perilous journey.
TheJournal.ie put some of the problems raised to Dr Roche (he is an astrophysicist, after all) beginning with the concerns of retired German astronaut Ulrich Walter, who warned that the probability of even reaching the planet’s surface could be as low as 30 per cent — the chances of surviving more than three months, worse still.
“Well, it’s such a new area no-one’s really certain yet whose estimates are trustworthy.
“The reason Mars One deserves to be taken seriously is that — it’s not just a disparate group of people who don’t know what they’re doing. The founder Bas Lansdorp is an engineer with a background in wind energy — he might not have a background in space exploration, but all the experts he’s brought in are the best in their areas.
How about the costs issue? Six billion dollars is obviously a lot of money — but it still seems a little on the low side considering we’re talking about a mission to another heavenly body?
“The reason for the discrepancy between NASA’s estimates and this mission is purely down to the lack of the return trip.
“Within space exploration at the moment the biggest financial issue is the return — trying to carry enough fuel to mount a return journey, and to do what they call a ‘hard launch’ from the surface of the planet.
“The NASA mission is thirty years down the line and around 50 times more expensive — that’s purely down to the fact that at the moment we don’t have anything that could launch to take people home. The six billion that Mars One is proposing is based on existing technology — we just can’t bring them back.
Roche is expecting to hear more news on the interview process from ‘mission control’ in April. Before then, he has to submit a series of medical test results to prove he’s up to the task.
The final 40 candidates will be selected in the next two years or so, coinciding with the start of the TV show. Viewers from all over the world will decide on the first four people to be sent.
It’s planned the cameras will also follow the progress of the resettlers as they conduct experiments, grow their own food, and generally strive to stay happy and healthy on a planet far, far away.
At the moment, according to Mars One, the TV rights issue is still the subject of “ongoing negotiations” with media companies. The project will also use crowd-funding as a means of raising the cash needed, while it’s hoped more sponsors and partners can be added the roster of Mars One supporters as the project progresses.
The development that — to date — perhaps best demonstrates the seriousness of the founders’ intentions took place last month, as Mars One signed a $250,000 (€180,000) contract with US group Lockheed Martin Space Systems to build a concept landing module for an unmanned test mission in five years time.
While there are plenty of high-profile critics (amongst them, the chief engineer of NASA) Mars One also has an impressive list of advisers and supporters on board, including Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Gerard ‘t Hooft and the co-creator of ‘Big Brother’ Paul Römer.
The media interest generated worldwide as countries keep track of their candidates’ progress will almost certainly keep the cash flowing in in the short term — but once TV strand of the project is up and running, what are the chance of this ever [I'm afraid there really is no better way to phrase this] getting off the ground?
Clearly, this is very far from being a nailed on thing — but you’d never go into a project like this without expecting setbacks along the way, up to the prospect of complete failure.
As a scientist I’d really have to say the chances are remote, but I think the Mars One plan is wonderfully ambitious.
*Jeff Wayne is not a scientist, obviously. You can rest assured that the actual chances of anything coming from Mars are far higher (but it’s unlikely the real figure would scan quite as well as a song lyric).
Email “So, what are the chances we'll see an Irishman (or anybody) head to Mars?”.
Feedback on “So, what are the chances we'll see an Irishman (or anybody) head to Mars?”.


The total eclipse of the sun, on August 21, is shaping up as big business, especially for the travel industry.
While the manufacturers of certified glasses and viewers will undoubtedly do a huge business in the next 12 days, airlines and hotels also expect to do very well.
In a very rare event, the total eclipse will be visible in a 70 mile wide strip that extends 3,000 miles across the continent, from Portland, Ore., to Charleston, S.C.
That means no matter where you live in the continental U.S., you are not terribly far from a prime viewing spot, just by heading north or south. Hotels in and near the 70 mile wide strip are mostly booked solid, and at premium rates.
Cheapflights.com has analyzed the searches on its site and found cities that lie within the 70 mile wide zone are seeing huge increases in search traffic. The biggest increases are cities in the West.
Lots of interest in Casper, Wyo.
Casper, Wyo., has seen the biggest increase, with traffic up 1,064%. At an altitude of over 5,000 feet, Casper may have the best chance of clear skies on August 21, a necessity if you're going to actually see the moon pass between the earth and the sun.
Redmond, Ore., is seeing a 271% spike in traffic. Redmond is considered a prime eclipse-viewing spot as well, since it normally has 300 days of sunny weather each year.
In the East, Columbia, S.C. is seeing a 245% increase in traffic. It isn't a normal tourist destination, but the eclipse is giving consumers a reason to go. Local tourism officials hope they stick around to see some of the other, more earth-bound sights.
"One of the best things about this eclipse is that it's shining the spotlight on many destinations that are wonderful slices of America," said Amanda Festa, editor at Cheapflights.com. "The small towns and cities that top our list are seeing big percentage spikes for the solar show in part because they're not the biggest of destinations. But, with or without the eclipse excitement, there's plenty to keep you entertained in each of them."
While the eclipse will be total in the 70 mile wide strip, it will be viewable as a partial eclipse in much of the U.S. To see how much of the eclipse you'll be able to observe where you live, check out this interactive tool.


HUGE POTENTIAL!! Multiple lake view home sites possible!! 47 BEAUTIFUL ACRES!! Overlooking Cove Hollow Boat dock. Just under $12,800 per acre. Build your secluded lake view home here, or possibly subdivide and build multiple homes. This rare gem is ready for you! Small home on the property with utilities. 34x30 pole barn.


Television dramas and news reports about suicide appear to trigger an increase in the number of teen-agers who take their own lives, according to two major new studies.
The reports, published Sept. 11 in The New England Journal of Medicine, provide some of the strongest support to date for earlier findings that an "imitative effect" prompts many young people to kill themselves.
Suicide has become the secondl-eading cause of death among young people in the United States, with an estimated 1,700 15- to 19- year-olds killing themselves each year.
In an editorial accompanying the studies, Dr. Leon Eisenberg of the Harvard Medical School suggested that in light of the studies, "it is timely to ask whether there are measures that should be undertaken to limit media coverage of suicide."
Spokesmen for the three major television networks disputed the findings last week and questioned the methodologies that were used to reach them.
In the first study, two sociologists from the University of California at San Diego analyzed the number of suicides that occurred before and after 38 nationally televised news and feature stories about suicide broadcast between 1973 to 1979.
The researchers, David P. Phillips and Lundie L. Carstensen, found that on average, there were three more teen-age suicides in the week after a news story or feature on the topic than would be expected on the basis of statistics. During the course of the study, 110 unexpected, or "excess," suicides occurred.
No comparable pattern was discerned among suicide victims age 20 and over, the researchers said.
"The more networks carried a story on suicide, the greater was the increase in [teen-age] suicides thereafter," the researchers wrote. "In view of these findings, educators, policymakers, and journalists may wish to consider ways of reducing public exposure to stories, both general and specific, about suicide."
The second study, by Madelyn S. Gould and David Shaffer, professors in the Department of Psychiatry and Public Health at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, examined the relationship between television dramas and suicidal behavior among teenagers in the greater New York City area.
Their study found that the number of suicide attempts rose by more than 50 percent above average in the two-week periods that followed three of four television dramas about suicide broadcast in the fall and winter of 1984 and 1985. The number of attempts increased from an average of 14 in the two-week I periods before the broadcasts to an average of 22 in the two-week periods following the shows.
"IT the declared aim is to try and be educational, I think we have to be very cautious and say we just don't know how to do it yet," Mr. Schaffer said in an interview.
In discussing the "imitative effect" in his editorial, Dr. Eisenberg used the term "Werther effect," coined from the title of Johann Wolfgang Goethe's 18th-18th-century novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. The romantic story of a young man who shoots himself was blamed for a rash of suicides among European youths.
Spokesmen for the ABC, CBS, and NBC television networks disputed the studies' findings.
"They do not measure and cannot measure the thousands of young people who are affected positively by the broadcasts," said George Schweitzer, a spokesman for CBS Broadcast Group.
All three network spokesmen said they retained consultants, sociologists, or psychologists for advice when they produced the four television dramas studied by the Columbia University researchers.
Five days after the studies were published, ABC broadcast an "after-school special" about a boy who kills himself. "It doesn't put him in the light of a hero," said Jefferey Tolvin, a network spokesman.
The studies also drew criticism last week from the Youth Suicide National Center, a non-profit group formed last year to develop strategies and provide information on preventing suicide.
"The alarming rate of suicide cannot be addressed through silence," Charlotte Ross, the center's president, said in a prepared statement. "It would be irresponsible to allow two recently released studies, which imply some negative relationships between certain media coverage of the subject and increased suicide rates among teens, to slow the development of effective programs and open communication."
In a related development, another survey released last week found that 31 percent of "high-achieving" high-school juniors and seniors said they had contemplated suicide at least once, and 4 percent had attempted it.
In their 17th annual survey of high-achievers, the publishers of Who's Who Among American High School Students also found that 46 percent of the teen-agers surveyed knew a young person who had attempted or committed suicide.
Students said factors contributing most to suicide include feelings of personal worthlessness (86 percent); feelings of isolation and loneliness (81 percent); and pressure to achieve (72 percent).


(IBN) — In a shocking incident on Friday, two youths allegedly ran their car over a school teacher in the town of Sonepat in Haryana, for not allowing one of their friends, a Class 12 student, to cheat in board examinations.
Rakesh was a Hindi teacher at Ramjas School in Sonepat. Vikram and Hari Om, the two accused, had pressed him to let their friend cheat in Class 12 board examinations. However, his constant refusal to do so proved costly for him.
When returning home on foot on Friday, the two youths crushed him to death under their car.


It is something we all strive for, discovering the key to true happiness.
And while love, friends, family and for some, money, maybe the goal, a new study has revealed a surprising finding.
A team of researchers claim the path to happiness is achieved by eating vanilla yogurt.
They discovered people showed strong, positive emotional responses to low-fat varieties of the plain flavor.
The researchers from Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research in the Netherlands, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, looked at three groups of at least 24 study participants' emotional responses when they ate yogurt.
Yogurts with different fruits in them generally didn't affect the participants' moods, the study found.
Lead researcher, Dr Jozina Mojet, from Food & Biobased Research, said: 'We were surprised to find that by measuring emotions, we could get information about products independent from whether people like them.
The study utilized different tactics to measure participants' emotional responses, including a new research method known as an emotive projection test to determine what effect the yogurts would have on people's moods.
The researchers showed study participants photographs of other people and then asked them to rate the people on six positive and six negative rates.
According to the study, people project their emotions on to others, so their moods can be indicated through their judgment of others.
The three participant groups were then given pairs of yogurt to taste, each of which were the same brand and marketing, though they had different fat content or flavors.
The researchers measured the participants' emotions using four methods, including the emotive projection test.
Liking or knowing a brand of yogurt didn't affect the participants' emotions, but the changes of the yogurt did, according to the study.
Being pleasantly surprised or disappointed by the yogurt affected the participants' moods, though.
Researchers also determined that there was no difference in the participants' responses to pineapple or strawberry yogurts, though lower-fat versions caused them to have more positive responses.
The team of scientists said their most surprising conclusion was that vanilla yogurt drew very strong positive responses from the participants.
This supports previous evidence that understated vanilla scents in hospital waiting rooms and other stressful places can reduce aggression and encourage relationships between staff and patients.
The study also suggests that this new emotive response method could be used as an effective way to gather information about a product before it goes to market.
Dr Mojet added: 'We were looking for a valid, quick and not too expensive and time-consuming method to measure the emotions or mood changes evoked by food.
The study was published in the journal Food Research International.


Thought bird flu was gone? Recent human deaths in Asia and Egypt are a reminder that the H5N1 virus is still alive and dangerous, and Vietnam is grappling with a new strain that has outsmarted vaccines used to protect poultry flocks.
Ten people have died in Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, China and Vietnam since December during the prime-time flu season when the virus typically flares in poultry.
"We are worried, and we will be very cautious," said To Long Thanh, director of Vietnam's Center for Animal Health Diagnostics in Vietnam.
The H5N1 virus has killed 345 people worldwide since 2003, when it rampaged across large swaths of Asia decimating poultry stocks before later surfacing in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The number of poultry outbreaks has greatly diminished since then, but the virus remains entrenched in several countries and continues to surface sporadically, resulting in 20 to 30 human deaths globally in recent years.
Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, with most people sickened after being in close contact with infected poultry, but experts have long feared it could spark a pandemic if it mutates into a form that spreads easily among people.
The fresh wave of cases comes amid a controversy involving scientists who created new lab-only versions of the virus that spread more easily among animals, hoping to better understand it. After a loud uproar over whether publishing the research would put the recipe for a bioweapon into the hands of terrorists, the researchers have agreed to temporarily halt their work.
They are set to wrap up a two-day meeting on the issue Friday with international experts at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Vietnam has long struggled to control the virus, but it has made progress - going 21 months before reporting its two most recent deaths in the past month. It has also experienced a burst of poultry outbreaks in 11 provinces nationwide over the same period. Officials have issued fresh warnings for farmers to beef up surveillance, especially since they can no longer rely on the latest poultry vaccine in the north and central aress where it is weak or useless against a new strain that has emerged in the region.
"We have to increase biosecurity," said Thanh, the animal diagnostics director.
The new strain had earlier been identified in China and was also recently found in Bangladesh and Nepal, where it likely spread via wild birds, said Jan Slingenbergh, a senior animal health officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
Viruses are constantly mutating and require new vaccines to protect against infection - the same reason new human seasonal flu shots are developed each year. A new vaccine is in the works, and scientists have stressed that the new strain has not changed in any way that suggests the virus is becoming more dangerous.
The U.N. agriculture agency warned of a possible resurgence in bird flu outbreaks after the new strain was identified, potentially increasing risk to humans. However, Vietnam's two recent deaths occurred in the southern Mekong Delta, where the vaccine remains effective. WHO stressed it is also normal to see a spike in cases and poultry outbreaks during this time of year.
"WHO has always said that as long as the virus is entrenched in poultry, which it is, there continues to be the risk of bird-to-human transmission," spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva. "That risk means that you cannot predict exactly if the transmission will happen and if it will be regular, but there is the risk so that's why it's not surprising to see cases."
Vietnam buys most of its poultry vaccine from China, which has continued with its robust vaccination campaign of some 15 billion doses despite the emergence of the new strain. Researchers there have developed a new version that works against the strain, but it's unclear when it might be ready for distribution, said Keith Hamilton, an animal influenza expert at the Paris-based World Organization of Animal Health.
"We emphasize that vaccination is a complementary tool," he said. "It has to be used in conjunction with other control measures - biosecurity on farms, early detection is essential, so is a rapid response to contain and eliminate sources of disease."
But in Ha Nam province, on the outskirts of Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, animal health officials are desperate to contain a poultry outbreak that hit last week. They have ordered 1 million doses of vaccine, hoping it will provide at least some protection.
"I wish to have an effective vaccine against bird flu as soon as possible, so I can go on raising ducks," said farmer Nguyen Van Duong, whose entire flock was slaughtered after the virus was detected.
"I am devastated at losing my investment on the ducks, but we will do anything to work with the authorities to stop it from spreading. The last thing we want is an outbreak to happen again."


WILL TWI SPIKE ON TOMORROW'S NEWS?
Stocks like TWI are creating awesome opportunities based on catalysts in the news. Is TWI the next one to get some major price action?


News arrived in Europe in 1571 that Muslim Turks, under the command of Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha, surrounded the Christians in Famagusta, Cyprus. Muslims promised the defenders of Cypus that if they surrendered, they would be allowed to leave. Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha broke his promise and flayed alive the Venetian commander. He then killed all 6,000 Christian prisoners. He turned the beautiful St. Nicholas Church into the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque. Turkish Muslims then intended to attack Rome, and from there conquer the rest of western Europe.
Pope Pius V used all the influence he had to get the Christian states of Spain, Naples, Sicily, Venice, Genoa, Sardinia, Savoy, Urbino, Papal States, Germans and Croatians to assemble into the Holy League, led by 24-year-old Don John of Austria.
On October 7, 1571, the largest and most decisive sea battle on the Mediterranean took place – the Battle of Lepanto off the western coast of Greece. Don John of Austria led the 212 ships with nearly 68,000 soldiers and sailors of the Holy League.
Ali Pasha led the Muslim Ottoman Turks, consisting of 82,000 soldiers and sailors on 251 ships powered by thousands of Christian galley slaves rowing under the decks. This was the last major battle with rowing vessels.
The morning of the battle, the Holy League was at a great disadvantage, struggling to row against the wind. Don John led his men on deck in a prayer. Suddenly the wind changed 180 degrees to favor the Holy League.
The Holy League ships collided into Ali Pasha’s ships. Fierce fighting went on for hours. Don John sailed his ship, Real, into Ali Pasha’s ship. Ali Pasha was finally killed and his head was hung from the ship. The Ottoman Muslims had 187 of their ships sunk or captured. Some 12,000 Christian galley slaves were freed.
Had the Muslims not been defeated, they would have invaded Italy and possibly conquered Europe.
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
The stairways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
But Don John of Austria has burst the battle line!
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Don John of Austria has set his people free!
Instead of following up on this victory and freeing Constantinople and Greek Islands from Muslim control, Spain sent their invincible Armada to conquer England. The Spanish Armada was destroyed in a hurricane in 1588. This caused Spain to loose its monopoly over the new world, opening the door for other European nations to settle colonies in America.
Two years after the Spanish Armada sank, a boy was born in England named William Bradford, on March 19, 1590. At age 17, the same year Shakespeare produced his play, “Anthony and Cleopatra,” William Bradford fled from England to Holland with the persecuted Pilgrims. At age 30, William Bradford sailed with the Pilgrims to America. In 1621, William Bradford was chosen governor and reelected 30 times till his death.


Watch the Official Trailer from Kannada movie 'Striker' starring Praveen Tej, Saurav Lokesh and Shilpa Manjunath. 'Striker' movie is directed by Pawan Trivikram and produced by Gudditi Shankarappa, C. Ramesh Babu and C. Suresh Babu. To know more about 'Striker' trailer watch the video. Check out the latest Kannada trailers, new movie trailers, trending Kannada movie trailers, and more at ETimes - Times of India Entertainment.


Malcolm Butler rejoined his New England Patriots teammates at Gillette Stadium this week. But he did so begrudgingly, according to a report.
CSNNE.com’s Mike Giardi reported Thursday the Patriots cornerback “badly” wanted to be traded to the New Orleans Saints, who showed interest in him before the 2017 NFL Draft, and only is back in New England because he has exhausted his options.
Butler waited more than a month to sign his restricted free agent tender, visiting with the Saints in the interim. He’s set to make just $3.91 million this season, nearly $10 million less than new teammate Stephon Gilmore will take home.
Gilmore, a Pro Bowl cornerback with the Buffalo Bills last season, signed a five-year, $65 million contract with the Patriots shortly after free agency opened in March.
Butler has been New England’s No. 1 cornerback since Darrelle Revis left town after the 2014 season. It will be interesting to see how or if his role will change with Gilmore now in the mix.
The Gilmore signing filled the void left by No. 2 corner Logan Ryan, who signed with the Tennessee Titans in free agency. The rest of the Patriots’ secondary should remain largely intact, as cornerbacks Eric Rowe, Cyrus Jones, Jonathan Jones and Justin Coleman, and safeties Devin McCourty, Patrick Chung and Duron Harmon all are under contract for this season.


Hailey Baldwin is “blown away” by everything her husband Justin Bieber does.
The 21-year-old model tied the knot with the Sorry singer back in September, and the pair is reportedly planning to celebrate their marital status with a big party in the coming weeks. While Hailey and Justin have yet to publicly confirm the wedding news, the blonde star couldn’t help but gush about her spouse during an interview in the new issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine.
And while the couple are still in the honeymoon stage of their relationship, Hailey isn’t going to rush into getting a tattoo tribute to her other half. Despite having matching inkings with best friend Kendall Jenner and cousin Ireland Baldwin, the stunning star wants to ensure she leaves space for some other important etchings in the future.
“I want more, but I’m keeping space for my kids’ names, and certain sentimental things, and I don’t want to fill all the cute spots before… I get there,” she said of her tattoos.
While Hailey is a successful model in her own right, her star power has risen exponentially since she rekindled her romance with Justin. And coping with such a boost publicly has been tough for the daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin.


A STEAL IN THE COMMUNITY ... OVER 2700 SQUARE FEET OF LIVING SPACE! This single family POOL home is a stroll down the street from an ABUNDANCE of community activities. Master bedroom PLUS den/office on the first floor AND A LARGE LOFT with 2 bedrooms on the second floor. Bring your family or guests and they can have their own private living space! 3rd bedroom has a HUGE storage closet for large items. Easy entertaining in the kitchen with an island & breakfast bar as well as a formal dining room. Huge master bath boasts dual sinks, 2 walk in closets, and walk in shower with separate soaking bath. 3rd half bath just off kitchen with a door exit to the lanai. Bundled golf included with no upfront membership fee and low annual fees. Other amenities include Tennis, Pickle ball, Bocce ball, State of the art fitness center, 2 main pools and 5 association pools, Restaurant with weekly entertainment in the sports bar, Library, Activities director, Nature trails through preserves and marshlands, and sidewalks. Pool has solar heating to save on energy bills.


The makers of Gran Turismo Sport have teamed up with streetwear labels, Anti Social Social Club, BAPE and Undefeated for special edition in-game vehicles. And… each brand dropped a limited capsule to add to the partnership.
Anti Social Social Club delivers a capsule of pink items, matching the in-game McLaren 650S they designed. Pieces include a hoodie, T-shirt and dad hat. BAPE’s drop matches the camo-clad Mercedes-AMG GTS they designed. That same camo is used for the bold graphics on a hoodie, available in both black and grey, as well as a T-shirt and sticker in the same colorways. Finally, Undefeated created a black hoodie and T-shirt.
All three streetwear capsules sports co-branding and the Gran Turismo logo.
The BAPE and Undefeated capsules will be available at the PlayStation Gear Store at this weekend’s PlayStation Experience 2017, taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA, from Dec. 9-10. They will also be available at BAPE’s New York flagship and Undefeated.com, respectively.
Anti Social Social Club’s “Gran Turismo Sport” capsule will be available only at their online store.
Gran Turismo Sport is available now for the PS4. Get your copy now at Amazon.com.


Bingsu (shaved ice with toppings) is a popular snack food found almost everywhere in Korea during the summer months. Believed to date back all the way to the Joseon Dynasty, the original bingsu was served simply as finely broken ice chips topped with sweetened red bean porridge. In the years following its debut, the popularity of bingsu exploded across the nation, bringing with it an almost endless variety of bingsu types and flavor combinations. Today, many bingsus shy away from the predominantly bean taste; some even omit the red beans altogether. From the traditional patbingsu of red beans and ice to complex mixes of ice cream and fruit, bingsus can easily be found in almost any coffee shop or bakery in Korea. Here, we’ll introduce you to the best of both worlds, giving you plenty of places where you can indulge in a sweet and delicious bingsu treat.
Dongbinggo in Ichon-dong, Yongsan-gu serves up a delicious version of the original patbingsu. This small establishment has just 8 tables and is so popular that you’ll have to take a number and wait to be seated. What sets Dongbinggo’s patbingsu apart from its competition is its use of locally-grown beans, which have a soft and pleasant texture without being mushy. The beans sit aloft a mound of thinly shaved ice chips flavored with a mixture of milk and condensed milk. Add generous slices of chewy rice cake and you’ve got a flavorful taste sensation! Other popular menu items are the Misutgaru (roasted rice and grain powder) Bingsu, Coffee Bingsu (made of aromatic coffee), and the Royal Milk Tea Bingsu (beloved for its rich tea flavor).
Directions: Ichon Station (Subway Line 4), Exit 4.
Walk straight (50m) until you reach a big road. Cross the street to the bus stop.
Take Bus 205 or 2016 and get off at Geumgang Asan Hospital.
Dongbinggo is on 1F of the shopping building of Hyundai Apartments across the street.


Your article on Aug. 24 headed ''The Neglected Bargain in Adjustables'' was fine as far as it went.
Unfortunately, it omitted a few points that are critical to a complete understanding of adjustable mortgages, and some potential serious shortcomings, specifically possible negative amortization and a distinction between ''payment'' and ''rate'' caps.
Many adjustables have a 2 point (for example) cap on payment, but not on the rate. In this situation, the borrower finds that although his payment may only go up 2 points at the end of an adjustment period, if the rates have increased more than 2 points, the difference is added to the unpaid balance resulting in negative amortization. ELLIOT RAPHAELSON Englishtown, N.J.


This year’s United Way Perth-Huron fundraising campaign kickoff wasn’t brought in with a bang, but rather with a tractor.
Standing on a stage with a haystack podium next to a pair of farm vehicles in Market Square Friday, campaign co-chairs Martin and Kathryn Ritsma announced the 2018-19 goal of $1.4-million. Although they were happy with the final number, they weren’t pleased with the initial setup for the harvest-themed event.
Now the pair will both be channeling that determination in order to hit the fundraising target of $1,446,625.
“Martin and I don’t like to fall short of goals, and we don’t want to have our supported partners fall short, either,” Kathryn said.
The local United Way currently supports 48 organizations and programs across both counties. Several representatives held signs expressing “unignorable issues” such as isolation, poverty, and homelessness they’re attempting to address during the unveiling.
To get things rolling, over 300 businesses will be hosting workplace campaigns over the next two weeks, Martin said.
He also pressed people to volunteer and spread the word about what United Way is doing to address issues throughout the area.
The pair, taking over from former campaign chairperson Andrew Williams, also announced a three-year goal of $4,427,000. Planning a trio of years in advance helps agencies forecast funding.
“It tends to work out better,” Kathryn said.
As for the one-year mark, it’s slightly less than last year’s goal of $1,556,445. In the end, $1,317,738 was raised. Now there’s a new target to take aim at.
“We’re all going to work hard over the next little while to make sure that that goal is met,” Perth-Wellington MP John Nater said.
Stratford Mayor Dan Mathieson said the city has a reputation as a caring and giving community.
“It’s through the generosity of all of you that make it really count,” he said.


Fans Design Their Own Gran Turismo 5 Car. So, Yeah, It Can "Transform".
Despite what looks like a screenshot from the game, above, the E-motion concept car is not available to drive in Gran Turismo 5. It's not even a real car.
It's instead one of the best fan projects I've ever seen for a game. Four French designers have teamed up to design the vehicle, which they've (virtually) built from the ground up, engineering a car that would be able to "change its mass distribution during the race... if you are in a turn, in a straight line or breaking phase."
In other words, morph and transform depending on how fast you were driving and how you were handling the car.
It looks like it'd be fast as all hell, too. Powered by a battery and weighing almost nothing, it would fly around the track, with performance the designers say would be a "compromise between a kart and a F1".
If, you know. The car actually existed.
The idea of putting non-existent cars inside Gran Turismo isn't new—the X-1 being perhaps the most notable example—so maybe developers Polyphony cold help these guys out.
The team responsible were Frédéric Le Sciellour (manager), Jérémy Sachot (industrial designer), Ishak Belhout (industrial designer) and Julien Ancery (digital designer).


John Kerry speaks with the media after a Mideast peace conference in Paris on Jan. 15.
Throughout the interview, Kerry repeatedly criticized Trump for the decision, saying the president “unilaterally ceded global leadership on this issue” that had bipartisan consensus in the past. He even pointed out that his successor at the State Department, Rex Tillerson, also wanted to keep the United States in the agreement. “I mean, what does Donald Trump know that Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, doesn’t know?” he asked.
Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, made the Sunday talk show rounds to defend the White House decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement. Speaking on Meet the Press, Pruitt denied that the move was political. “It was right for this country, Chuck. This is a decision that was right for this country from a jobs perspective, an economy perspective and an environmental perspective,” Pruitt said. “It was not a political decision.” In the interviews, Pruitt continued to refuse to answer whether Trump believes climate change is a hoax.


'Tis the season for amazing deals on TVs. We've seen a ton of impressive deals on some amazing TVs including the LG C8 series, which just so happens to be our pick for the best TV of the year. On Black Friday, there were impressive discounts on the 55- and 65-inch models, but what if you dream bigger?
If you've been waiting for the right moment to really want to splurge on upgrading your home entertainment center, we got an exclusive offer from Massdrop on the 77-inch LG C8 OLED Smart 4K TV. This is a seriously massive TV, and it's not for the faint of heart or the small of walls.
This is literally the best TV we’ve ever tested and with this deal, it’s actually at a reasonable price for this size. The 77-inch model typically costs around $7,000, but with this drop, you can get it for just $4,949.99, which is definitely the lowest price we've ever seen.
After testing the LG C8, we gave it a perfect 10.0 score. Our TV expert, Lee Neikirk, even admitted it has ruined other TV screens for him. Not only does this TV have incredibly rich and contrast-heavy picture quality thanks to the OLED screen, but it also has a built-in webOS for easy app scrolling that makes its built-in streaming platform, so you can easily stream your favorite holiday movies. LG also added something called AI ThinQ, which gives smart home control to your TV similar to Amazon Alexa.
To access this incredible deal, you do need to sign up for an account with Massdrop, but don’t worry! It's free to sign up. Once you're logged in you can check out this deal and buy the new TV of your dreams!
Editor's note: This deal is good through Sunday, Dec. 11, but note that Massdrop's shipping takes longer than usual and won't actually ship until Jan 2. This is because they wait until the drop is ended to get the TVs at the discounted rate (which is how they pass the savings to you!).
Looking for a more budget-friendly oversized 4K TV? We also happened to score an exclusive Massdrop deal on the 82-inch Samsung Q6FN QLED for $2,499.99, which is 50% off the list price! It's not the best TV of the year, but it is the cheapest 82-inch 4K TV we've ever seen.


Taylor Swift donated the remainder of her $1 million pledge to four charities benefiting those affected by the devastating Louisiana floods.
The "Shake It Off" singer, 26, pledged in August to help the victims of the historic floods by donating $1 million to deserving causes across the state. She has allocated the funds to Convoy of Hope, The Life of a Single Mom and YWCA Greater Baton Rouge. She also gifted $100,000 to Habitat for Humanity, which hopes to rebuild 100 homes in Baton Rouge by the end of 2017.
"Our hearts are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for single moms," a statement on The Life of a Single Mom's website reads. "We are grateful to Taylor Swift for reaching out to help us ensure that no single mom walks alone during this very difficult time. The devastation across southeast Louisiana has been unbelievable. We are thankful for the opportunity to serve more single moms with this gift."
Dianna Payton, CEO of YWCA Greater Baton Rouge, echoed similar statements, writing on the organization's website: "The generous donation from Taylor Swift could not have come at a better time for our organization. These funds will be put to great use as we continue working to restore our Early Head Start facility that was damaged during the historic flooding last month, and continue our critical work of providing access to high quality early childhood services. … Thank you, Taylor Swift, and to all those at the Taylor Swift Foundation, for your kindness and generosity in these challenging times."
In August, Swift released a statement to the Associated Press in which she explained why the floods hit so close to home. "We began the 1989 World Tour in Louisiana, and the wonderful fans there made us feel completely at home," she said. "The fact that so many people in Louisiana have been forced out of their own homes this week is heartbreaking."
The catastrophic floods, which were caused by the more than 6 trillion gallons of rain that fell in Louisiana between August 8 and 14, killed at least 13 people and damaged tens of thousands of homes. The floods have been called the worst natural disaster in the United States since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Lady Gaga, Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears also donated to the relief fund.


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, is urging consumers to be aware of potential health data privacy risks after Amazon recently positioned Alexa to team up in an attempt to track consumers’ prescriptions and relay personal health information.
Patronis said that even though the technology is built to make our lives easier, there are serious privacy risks that come along with it.
Though Amazon employs thousands of staff members who are dedicated to improving the digital assistant, Patronis referenced a previous data breach that could have a lifelong impact on some people’s identity.
“Due to just one major data breach in 2017, 143 million Americans now face the potential of lifelong threats of identity theft,” he said. “It's only a matter of time before voice technology suffers a breach."
Turn off the mic and camera when you aren’t using your Alexa device.
Alexa products capture all voice commands and other sounds in the room. If you know you won’t be using your device, turn your mic off to ensure it can’t record things being said. Newer devices have cameras, so make sure you disable that function when not in use.
All recordings remain on the Amazon cloud until you delete them. These can include conversations you’ve had which you've disclosed private information. Listen to and clear out your stored recordings by going to Settings > History in the Alexa app. You can also utilize the dashboard available at Amazon.com.
Limit or disable Drop In permissions immediately.
The Drop In feature on Alexa devices is designed to create an intercom system with another device. Be extremely cautious when allowing any Drop In permissions to your device as it allows others to access your mic and speaker. The other user can be inthe next room or in a completely different city.
Do you own an Alexa device? Patronis wants you to take a moment to weigh the risks before deciding to merge health records with the digital assistant.


Hollywood stop of rap tour also includes Benzino, Poverty, Killah Priest.
Underground Airplay Version 1.0 features Killah Priest, X-ecutioners, more.
Cam'ron Joined By Destiny's Child, O.D.B. On "S.D.E."


Build your Florida dream home, minutes away from many our gorgeous gulf beaches. Many builders to choose from. Never get tired of playing the same golf course with so many to choose from. Take your pick of tasty restaurants serving up their unique culinary flare. Spend time with family and friend boating and fishing, with easy access out to the ICW or Gulf of Mexico from multiple public boat launches.


Ashantigold defender Richard Osei Agyemang has confirmed that he was attacked with a knife by a fan after the club's 1-0 win over Medeama on Sunday.
The former Asante Kotoko defender was red carded with 20 minutes to end the game, drawing the fury of fans of the club.
A remorseful Agyemang admitted his red card was not intentional but he always has the club at heart hence the desire to give his all.
"I can never say I am bigger than Ashgold, you cannot begrudge the supporters for their actions, they are supporters and will remain, supporters," he told Oyerepa FM. "They are same people who will hail me when things go right," he added.
"It's true, a fan threatened me with a knife but it took the intervention of some people who rescued me," he revealed.
"I am still an Ashgold player and so will come back after my suspension and play for Ashgold.
"The red card I received wasn't intentional, my face is swollen and I feel pains all over so why will I intentionally do that," he quizzed.
Agyemang will miss Ashantigold's trip to Berekum Chelsea in midweek due to suspension.


Indonesian search and rescue teams on Wednesday plucked stranded residents from remote islands and pushed into isolated communities desperate for aid after a volcano-triggered tsunami killed over 400.
But torrential rains hampered their efforts and heaped more misery on the region as stunned residents waded through waist-deep water in parts of hard-hit Carita.
"Heavy rains caused a river to overflow and several places are flooded," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Twitter.
"It's hampering efforts to evacuate people and help other survivors."
The disaster agency cautioned residents to stay clear of the coast as activity was still high at the rumbling Anak Krakatoa volcano, which sits in the middle of the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands.
A section of the crater collapsed after an eruption and slid into the ocean, triggering Saturday night's killer tsunami, officials have said.
The powerful waves struck without warning, washing over popular beaches and inundating tourist hotels and coastal communities on both sides of the strait — and leaving a trail of death and destruction.
The latest death toll stood at 429, with 1,485 people injured and another 154 still missing.
Medical workers have warned that clean water and supplies were running low — stoking fears of a public health crisis — as thousands of displaced survivors cram shelters and hospitals. Many were left homeless by the killer wave.
The disaster agency has dispatched helicopters to drop supplies into a handful of hard-to-reach communities along the shattered coastlines.
Hundreds of residents still stranded on tiny islands in Sunda Strait are being airlifted or taken by boat to shelters.
Sniffer dogs are being used to find those still missing as grief-stricken relatives lined up at identification centres.
But hopes of finding any survivors beneath the rubble have dwindled.
"We're starting to access the most isolated places hit by the tsunami," said senior disaster agency official Dody Ruswandi.
"The devastation there is pretty massive."
Some roads and bridges near isolated communities had been damaged, making road access more difficult, he added.
At the Tanjung Lesung resort, mangled remnants were clumped on the soggy ground — a jumble of metal, chairs and awning.
Elsewhere, cars and minibuses had been thrown against buildings, concrete walls shattered into small pieces and uprooted trees spread around.
A wooden sign that read "Good Times" lay on the ground.
The tsunami struck the resort as more than 200 workers from the state electricity company were watching pop band Seventeen perform.
The four-member group was hurled from the stage as the water slammed into the audience — only the band's lead vocalist survived.
Anak Krakatoa is an island that emerged in the crater left by Krakatoa, whose massive 1883 eruption killed at least 36,000 people.
Experts have warned that more deadly waves could slam the stricken region now covered by mountains of overturned cars, boats, furniture and other debris.
Many evacuees are too afraid to go home.
Hundreds of Indonesian Red Cross staff and volunteers are delivering clean water, blanket, tarpaulins and other supplies, while it dispatched mobile medical units.
"Our teams are seeing many broken bones and broken homes, and people who are very shaken," said Arifin Hadi, head of disaster management at the Indonesian Red Cross.
"Indonesians have withstood a string of disasters this year and with them, so much loss and misery."
Jakarta has so far rebuffed offers of international aid, saying the disaster-prone country could handle the latest crisis.
On Wednesday, thousands prayed for loved ones at mass graves and mosques to mark the 14th anniversary of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
It was one of the deadliest disasters in history, killing some 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including some 168,000 Indonesians, most in Aceh at the northern tip of Sumatra.


Fairchild, Jerry D., "The Schmidt Site: A Pre-Nipissing Village in the Saginaw Valley, Michigan" (1977). Master's Theses. 2238.


STOCKHOLM, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Sweden’s caretaker government said next year’s budget would include a cut in taxes for pensioners but that 2019 spending plans, presented on Thursday, would likely undergo changes when a new administration takes office.
Voters delivered a hung parliament in September and neither there centre-left bloc nor the centre-right, four-party Alliance has yet been able to form a new government.
The 2019 budget is broadly an extension of 2018’s spending plans with some automatic adjustments.
“This budget should not be seen as the final product for 2019 as a new government will want to put its stamp (on fiscal policy) after it has taken over,” Deputy Finance Minister Per Bolund said in a statement.
However, all parties agreed to lower taxes for those over 65, a measure which will cost 4.2 billion Swedish crowns ($463.80 million) annually from 2019, the government said.
Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s centre-left government had previously promised more money for local authorities and extra spending on welfare, schools and the military, but those measures will have to wait.
A new administration can boost spending as soon as it takes over, but it will not be able to do anything about income taxes - a major blow to parties in the centre-right Alliance who had promised cuts.
Income taxes can only be cut or raised in the autumn budget, coming into effect at the start of the next calendar year.
The caretaker government saw growth this year at 2.5 percent, slightly lower than its previous forecast of 2.9 percent.


The name of Walter Rauschenbusch is synonymous with the Social Gospel, a movement that exerted a major influence in Mainline American Protestantism at the outset of the twentieth century with the aim of mobilizing American Christians to work for a more just society for all, especially the urban working class. Walter Rauschenbusch served as pastor to a Baptist congregation of German immigrants on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen (a neighborhood in midtown Manhattan) in New York, taught church history at Rochester Theological Seminary (now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School), and traveled the length and breadth of America by railroad to advocate the cause of the Social Gospel. He was committed to the necessity of vital religious experience to transform individual personalities and political activism to make social structures in society equitable. More than any other person Walter Rauschenbusch captured the spirit of the Social Gospel Movement, alerting his contemporaries to a perceived social crisis unfolding in America during the opening decades of the twentieth century and exhorting them to seize a unique opportunity for social progress. He railed against the brutal social conditions that were the product of rapid industrialization, and, yet, ironically, kept company with some of the wealthiest capitalists in America. “In reality, he was primarily a pastor whose goal was nothing short of preaching for the conversion of America” (Evans, 2004, xxv). The disquiet he expressed at America going to war against Germany, the land of his parents’ birth and many of the people he served in his pastoral ministry, ultimately resulted in Rauschenbusch falling out of public favor in America as the First World War progressed. He produced the definitive statement of the theology of the Social Gospel, A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) shortly before his death. Rauschenbusch did not live to see Germany defeated in 1918.
Walter Rauschenbusch was born in Rochester, New York, on October 4, 1861. His father, August Rauschenbusch, was a German immigrant to America who had been raised as a Lutheran, but became a Baptist. August was educated at Berlin University and ordained to the Lutheran ministry in 1840. He perceived his main objectives as a pastor to be awakening his parishioners to an awareness of their sin and the need to accept Jesus into their lives. In 1844 he sensed a calling to mission work among the German immigrants in the United States. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1846 and commenced a new chapter of ministry. Attracted to the vigor of Baptist life and increasingly persuaded that the Baptist way of being the church coincided most closely with the teaching of the New Testament, August was baptized as a believer by total immersion in the Mississippi River in May 1850 and commenced activity as a Baptist evangelist and church planter. He married Caroline Rumps in 1854. August was invited to lead the German Department at the recently formed Rochester Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York, in 1858. The move to Rochester coincided with the death of the second of August and Caroline’s children, Wilfrieda. A third child, Emily, was born in 1859. Walter Rauschenbusch was the fourth child born to August and Caroline. He grew up in a home characterized by strict discipline, a keen commitment to excellence in education, and an experiential form of Christian piety. August Rauschenbusch relocated his wife and children to Germany temporarily in 1865 for a period of four years. As a consequence of his cultural background and experience Walter acquired fluency in German and English.
Walter Rauschenbusch was educated in America and Germany. His father arranged for him to study in a German Gymnasium (similar to an American college education) for four years (1879-1883), located in Güterslob, a small city in Westphalia, Prussia. Augu Rauschenbusch wanted his son to experience the German system of higher education, which he believed to be superior to the American version. He also hoped that immersion in the religious and cultural environment of his homeland would reinforce his own orthodox values and piety in his son. Walter Rauschenbusch attended lectures at several German universities: Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, and Berlin. He returned to America via England, spending a few weeks in London and making trips to Oxford and Liverpool.
Walter Rauschenbusch was called to the pastorate of the Second German Baptist Church in New York City. He began his ministry on 1st June 1886. Here Rauschenbusch encountered the harsh realities of capitalist industrialization as experienced by the poor: unemployment, malnutrition, slums, and disease. His theology entered a period of flux. He was asked to intercede on behalf of church members; many were confronted by problems rooted in economic deprivation. On one occasion he pleaded for a church member thrown out of hospital due to an inability to pay fees. Not infrequently he was called to keep company with the dying. The funerals Rauschenbusch conducted for children particularly affected him. Ultimately, Rauschenbusch’s experience of life, church, and ministry in New York in the period 1886-1892 was to change his understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. He never totally abandoned the pietism exemplified in his parents; rather he enlarged the scope of what it meant to be a Christian and sought to persuade others to do the same. Most of his sermons in the early years at Second Baptist, which were preached in German, did not touch upon the topic of Social Christianity. Rauschenbusch emphasized God’s love and the responsibility of congregants to live Christlike lives.
By 1887 he was wrestling with two issues: the spiritual care of his congregation and the social conditions of the city that created a chasm between rich and poor. Rauschenbusch began to publish descriptions of the brutal reality experienced by the poor in New York in Baptist periodicals. For many of the poor, no matter how hard they worked, would never rise to material and financial safety. Ironically, as Rauschenbusch was developing a broader social vision, he was confronted with the challenge of raising funds to build a new place of worship for Second German Baptist. He approached John D. Rockefeller to assist the building project with a financial contribution. Rauschenbusch had first made Rockefeller’s acquaintance several years earlier, when the wealthy businessman had contributed generously to the work of Rochester Theological Seminary. Contact was renewed when he attended the wedding of Rockefeller’s daughter, Bessie, to an old friend, Charles Strong.
Rauschenbusch attended a rally in support of Henry George’s “single tax” campaign in the first year of his pastorate. (George advocated the abolition of all taxes except for a tax to be applied to the value of land.) A Roman Catholic priest form New York, Father Edward McGlynn, spoke in support of the proposed program. Rauschenbusch was struck by the way McGlynn connected Christian faith and economic reform. McGlynn’s address concluded with the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Something about the way the priest said the words, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth”, made a deep impression upon Walter Rauschenbusch. In 1888-1889 Rauschenbusch made more and more mention of the Kingdom of God in his public speaking. He began to think about writing a manuscript to articulate his ideas about the church and the Kingdom of God.
Rauschenbusch began to experience a loss of hearing in one ear while at seminary. The problem steadily grew more acute and increasingly prevented him from fulfilling all his pastoral responsibilities. In 1891 he announced his resignation from the pastorate at Second German Baptist Church and embarked upon a trip to Germany with his family in search of medical assistance and intellectual invigoration. Much to his amazement, the church refused to accept his resignation and generously contributed to the expense of this overseas expedition. Rauschenhusch spent nine months in Germany from March to December 1891. His sabbatical in Germany would give him the opportunity to set down on paper the convictions that had begun to emerge in the context of pastoral ministry in New York. Rauschenbusch formulated his doctrine of the Kingdom of God, which became the organizing principle of his theology and life work.
Towards the end of his sabbatical, Rauschenbusch traveled to England and visited London, Birmingham, and Liverpool to learn about Anglican socialism and other forms of British social Christianity. He was greatly impressed by Birmingham’s “municipal socialism”. The local government in Birmingham controlled all gas and water supplies, and provided free meals in schools for children. Rauschenbusch was fascinated by the work of the Salvation Army in London and a great admirer of General William Booth’s In Darkest England, an account of the hardship and poverty endured by the English working class, published in 1890.
Rauschenbusch did not find a cure for his deafness, but he did experience a renewal of spiritual life, conviction, and purpose. On his return to New York, he established several new neighborhood projects. Rauschenbusch also founded the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, an informal network of mainly ministers committed to the social transformation of American society.
In 1892 Rauschenbusch convened a meeting at his New York apartment of Baptist ministers interested in advancing an agenda for social justice in the life of the contemporary church in America. The following summer ten Baptist ministers and a layman gathered at a private family summer residence to the North of New York at Marlborough on the Hudson. From 1893 onwards the Brotherhood of the Kingdom met annually in the summer for almost twenty years at the same location. The Brotherhood of the Kingdom served as a source of mutual support for members and think tank, a testing ground for Rauschenbusch’s ideas.
In 1897 Rauschenbusch was offered a position on the German faculty at Rochester Theological Seminary. The first five years of his career as a seminary professor afforded him little time to engage in academic research and writing, because he was responsible for teaching a broad range of classes. His students were mainly German immigrants. The sudden death of a colleague in the English department, a professor of church history, created a vacancy on the faculty that was made available to Rauschenbusch. He accepted the invitation and found himself presented with an opportunity to pursue studies that would serve his interest in social Christianity.
The publication of Christianity and the Social Crises announced Rauschenbusch to a larger public beyond German Baptist circles. He received numerous invitations to speak on the themes addressed in the book. Rauschenbusch began to travel widely to advance the cause of the Social Gospel. It was not unusual for Rauschenbusch to teach classes in seminary during the week and then travel over the weekend to fulfill speaking engagements. His journeys took him to New York, New England, Nashville, Berkeley in California, and Chicago.
Walter Rauschenbusch achieved a national profile as a consequence of the publication of Christianity and the Social Crisis. His prominence in the period 1907-1917 coincided with the high watermark of the Social Gospel in America. America’s decision to go to war against Germany was a bitter blow to Rauschenbusch. His opposition to war and reluctance to demonize Germany earned him a great deal of criticism in an atmosphere of extreme patriotism and hostility towards Germany. Although Rauschenbusch was deeply affected by America’s entry into World War One, he managed to complete the manuscript for A Theology for the Social Gospel, which was published in 1917. His health deteriorated rapidly in the first months of the following year. Rauschenbusch was eventually hospitalized in June 1918. Doctors operated and discovered cancer in the colon. The last weeks of Rauschenbusch's life were marked by considerable distress. He died on 25 July 1918.
Christianity Revolutionary (1891 [Published posthumously as The Righteousness of the Kingdom (1968)], Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening (1910), Christianizing the Social Order (1912), The Social Principles of Jesus (1916), A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917).
History was the fundamental category in Rauschenbusch’s thought. In this he followed closely in the footsteps of Albrecht Ritschl and Adolf von Harnack. Rauschenbusch viewed the study of history as a search for signs of the Kingdom of God in human affairs. Although, he never wrote a significant piece of historical scholarship, Rauschenbusch nevertheless utilized historical scholarship to make his case for the Social Gospel. He also drew upon sociology. Rauschenbusch was not interested in metaphysical speculation in doctrinal matters. He did not abandon the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, but he did reinterpret them in the light of his understanding of the Kingdom of God which points to a progressive effort to establish a more just social order. Doctrine was primarily about social ethics. The main lines of his thought were laid down in the late nineteenth century. He remained firmly entrenched in the categories of historical contingency, German idealism, evolutionary thought, and personalism. Rauschenbusch critically appropriated these themes in his own theology and ministry. He welded them together with his inherited evangelical piety that recognized the presence and power of a living God to transform human lives.
Rauschenbusch’s experience of pastoral ministry prompted him to rethink his theology. He believed that American Christianity was confronted by a seismic social crisis that cried out for a prophetic response to challenge those forces that exploited the working classes and made their lives intolerable. The themes of crisis and opportunity run like a repeated chorus through the books Rauschenbusch wrote between 1907 and 1917. Rauschenbusch was weighed down by the appalling conditions he witnessed in America at the turn of the century, but he was essentially optimistic that the church could rise to the occasion for the sake of the Kingdom of God. A better social order could be created, although it would never be perfect.
Rauschenbusch never trivialized the reality of sin and evil. These were forces active in individual human beings and systemically in the institutions and structures of society. Rauschenbusch was convinced that individual human beings needed to be saved. He could recognize in Dwight L. Moody, a renowned revivalist preacher, a kindred spirit, a man who wanted to see lives changed for the better by the power of the risen Christ. Rauschenbusch wanted to expand the notions of sin and salvation. Both were intensely personal and supra-personal. Rauschenbusch articulated the concepts of systemic evil and the possibility of social redemption. He envisaged an increasing Christianization of American society, by which he meant that institutions and social relations in America could increasingly be brought under the influence of the law of Christ. Christian principles could make a positive difference to the social order, even thought they would never be comprehensively or perfectly implemented.
Walter Rauschenbusch wrote Christianity Revolutionary over the summer of 1891 while on sabbatical leave from Second German Baptist Church in New York. Christianity Revolutionary emerged out of his pastoral experience in New York and sabbatical studies in theology, history, and sociology. The production of a manuscript proved to be a catalytic process. Although not published during his lifetime, Christianity Revolutionary articulated the theological framework and principles that would inform his ministry over the next two decades. Rauschenbsuch immersed himself in the writings of German Protestant scholarship, especially the work of Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889). According to Ritschl, Christianity is essentially a historical religion and the best way of understanding the development of Christian thought since the time of the Apostles is by means of historical study. Rauschenbusch appropriated this historical approach to studying Christianity. Ritschl was instrumental in refocusing German Protestant scholarship’s attention upon the Kingdom of God as a major theme in the teaching of Jesus. As a result of his studies Rauschenbusch gained a historical perspective on the New Testament that evoked a fresh study of the connection between the early church and the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God provided Rauschenbush with the means of making a conceptual breakthrough. “In effect, German liberalism gave him the theological framework for articulating the beliefs that he already had held for several years” (Evans, 2004, 94). Rauschenbusch did not absorb everything then current in German theological scholarship. He was critical of the social conservatism that he detected in Ritschl’s work, which seemed inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. He was also perturbed by the intense nationalism evident in both conservative and liberal theologians in Germany.
Christ initiated his Kingdom on earth by establishing a community of spiritual men, in inward communion with God and in outward obedience to him. This was the living germ of the Kingdom…Every such step forward, every increase in mercy, every obedience to justice, every added brightness of truth would be an extension of the reign of God in humanity, an incoming of the Kingdom of God. The more men became saturated with the thoughts of Christ the more they came to judge all actions from this point of view, the more they conformed the outward life of society to the advancing inward standard, the more would Christ be the dominant force in the world (Rauschenbusch, 1891, 87-88).
The fact is that the experience of all these centuries has been a long commentary on the coming of the Kingdom. The prophets expected it suddenly. The coming of the Messiah, the judgement, the destruction of the wicked, the erection of the perfect reign of God, all this they saw as one event. John the Baptist expected it that way too. Christ emphasized the gradualness of it. It was a growth like the growth of a mustard plant. It was an organic process like the fermentation of yeast (Ibid., 109).
Rauschenbsuch frequently illustrates the Kingdom of God in terms of organic development, a concept that is compatible with German liberal idealism (A movement that stressed the realization of ideas within historical processes.). Furthermore, he is persuaded that God’s love is primarily directed to the transformation of individual human personalities, a theme that is very prominent in American liberal theology at the end of the nineteenth century. The more individuals embraced and lived out the teachings of Jesus, the more society would improve for the better. Yet, Rauschenbusch was not blind to the human tendency to self-interest, which would always work against the advance of the Kingdom of God. Ultimately, Rauschenbusch offered little in the way of concrete proposals to remedy the social ills that troubled him so deeply. He did insist that Christians must be prepared to suffer for their beliefs and the cause of social justice. Social change must be accomplished by means of non-violence. Rauschenbusch showed the manuscript of Christianity Revolutionary to some of his close friends. The book did not reach the public domain until after his death. Some of the themes he addressed did see the light of day in the book that would make Rauschenbusch a household name in America.
Rauschenbusch began to rework some of the themes he had expressed in the manuscript he wrote on sabbatical in 1891 and added material developed in subsequent published articles through the summer of 1905 and finished the new book in 1906. It was published in America under the title Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), while he was on sabbatical in Germany. The main thesis of the book is that Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth century confronts a time of immense social crisis, which simultaneously offers the disciples of Jesus Christ an unparalleled opportunity to work for the social order to fit more harmoniously with the demands of the Kingdom of God.
Why did the early church seemingly abandon Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God? In effect, Rauschenbusch responded with a revisionist history of the early church to account for the demise of the Kingdom of God as the central concept in Christian theology and concluded that the contemporary church needed to reconnect with the revolutionary teachings of the Kingdom of God.
During the great industrial crisis in the 90’s I saw good men go into disreputable lines of employment and respectable widows consent to live with men who would support them and their children. One could hear the human virtue cracking and crumbling all around. Whenever work is scarce, petty crime is plentiful. But that is only the tangible expression of the decay in the morale of the working people on which the statistics can seize. The corresponding decay in the morality of the possessing classes at such a time is another story. But industrial crises are not inevitable in nature; they are merely inevitable in capitalism (Rauschenbusch, 1907, 238).
The continents are strewn with the ruins of dead nations and civilizations. History laughs at the optimistic illusion that “nothing can stand in the way of human progress” (Ibid., 279).
Social religion, too, demands repentance and faith: repentance for our social sins; faith in the possibility of a new social order…. Those who believe in a better social order are often told that they do not know the sinfulness of the human heart. They could justly retort the charge on the men of the evangelical school. When the latter deal with public wrongs, they often exhibit curious unfamiliarity with the forms which sin assumes there, and, sometimes reverently bow before one of the devil’s spider webs, praising it as one of the mighty works of God (Ibid., 349).
In asking for the possibility of a new social order, we ask for no Utopian delusion. We know well that there is no perfection for man in this life: there is only growth toward perfection…. We shall never have a perfect social life, yet we must seek it with faith…. At best there is always but an approximation to a perfect social order. The Kingdom of God is always but coming (Ibid., 420-421).
Christianity and the Social Crisis was widely read and went through six printings in two years. The passion and clarity of Rauschenbusch’s writing captured the imagination of Protestant Mainline Christians in America. Christianity and the Social Crisis articulated what many clergy wanted to say and propelled the message of the Social Gospel out of the shadows into the broad light of a very public day. The genius of the book was the way in which Rauschenbusch linked a theological vision of social justice to a vividly described social crisis and challenged his readers to act on behalf of oppressed people (Evans, 2004, 187). Rauschenbusch had issued a prophetic challenge to his contemporaries in the Protestant Mainline churches. Ten years later he would compose a systematic theology to justify the Social Gospel.
A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) is Walter Rauschenbusch’s attempt to lay a theological foundation for the Social Gospel Movement: “We have a social gospel. We need a systematic theology large enough to match it and vital enough to back it” (Ruaschenbusch, 1917, 1). The first three chapters of A Social Theology for the Gospel make the case for a “readjustment and expansion of theology” (Ibid.) to supply a sufficient intellectual foundation for the social gospel. The remainder of the book attempts to show how key Christian doctrines can be “expanded and readjusted” (Ibid.) to incorporate ideas central to the social gospel.
A Theology for the Social Gospel argues for the reality of sin in both personal and social dimensions. The Social Gospel has rediscovered the social nature of sin and recognizes “the super-personal forces of evil” (Ibid., 69) ) manifested in social realities. Rauschenbusch insists that salvation also consists of personal and social dimensions. The middle segment of the book seeks to show how the Social Gospel springs from the centrality of the Kingdom of God in the mission and message of Jesus Christ. Jesus initiated the Kingdom of God, which has implications for the Christian conception of God, and the task of the church. Rauschenbusch concludes by asking how the Social Gospel sheds fresh light on the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), eschatology, and the Atonement.
Walter Rauschenbsuch in the course of his pastoral ministry, seminary teaching, and advocacy of the Social Gospel never doubted that sin exists. In A Theology for the Social Gospel he maintains that Christianity has always had a strong sense of the reality of sin. But what is sin? According to Rauschenbusch, “Theology with remarkable unanimity has discerned that sin is essentially selfishness. This is an ethical and social definition, and is proof of the unquenchable social spirit of Christianity” (Ibid., 47). Classical theology has failed to understand the social aspect of sin, and instead viewed sin almost exclusively as a private matter between God and the individual person. Human beings sin against God, and at the same time, sin against fellow human beings because as human beings we are all connected to one another. The weakness of much theology lies in its failure to see the complex matrix of sin. Rauschenbusch defends the traditional doctrine of original sin, but reinterprets it. The classic doctrine of original sin claimed a biological transmission of sin from generation to generation. Rauschenbusch asserts that “sin is transmitted along the lines of social tradition” (Ibid., 60). Sin socially transmitted and accumulated in humanity “is absorbed by the individual from his social group” ( Ibid.). Collective sins appear as “the super-personal forces of evil” (Ibid., 69) )which belong to the “Kingdom of Evil” (Ibid., 78) opposed to the Kingdom of God. What then is salvation? How can a person be saved? A person or persons can be saved only by turning away form self to God and to humanity. They will find salvation only if they give up selfishness in cooperative work with others to overcome it. A religious experience of solidarity is more Christian than a purely individualistic one. Rauschenbusch is adamant that the old, individualistic conceptions of sin and salvation must be reconsidered in the more Biblical and corporate views of humanity proposed by the Social Gospel. Rauschnebusch does not deny the significance of individual salvation as an essential part of the whole spectrum of Christian salvation (Ibid., 95). Yet, a narrowly individualized notion of salvation is deficient in two respects. First, it tends to ignore Jesus’ teachings of discipleship in the Kingdom as servanthood and cooperation, but unconsciously emphasizes personal selfishness. Second, it tends to see individual salvation as of ultimate importance and so does not recognize the necessity of the redemption of social institutions and the creation of an environment in which individuals can be transformed.
The Kingdom of God is divine in its origin, progress and consummation. It was initiated by Jesus Christ, in whom the prophetic spirit came to its consummation, it is sustained by the Holy Spirit, and it will be brought to its fulfilment by the power of God in his own time….The Kingdom of God, therefore, is miraculous all the way, and is the continuous revelation of the power, the righteousness, and the love of God (Ibid., 139.
It is “the supreme purpose of God…. It is realized not only by redemption, but also by the education of mankind and the revelation of his life within it” (Ibid., 140). “It is for us to see the Kingdom of God as always coming, always pressing in on the present, always big with possibility, and always inviting immediate action” (Ibid., 141). Long before Christ, “men of God” anticipated the Kingdom of God as the final destination for humanity. Christ offered a distinctive interpretation of the Kingdom of God, which sets Christianity apart. The Kingdom of God is no less than “humanity organized according to the will of God” (Ibid., 142). Rauschenbusch is optimistic about the possibilities open to humanity. He thinks that “the progressive reign of love in human affairs” (Ibid., 142) will bring about “the progressive unity of mankind” (Ibid., 143).
Rauschenbusch is convinced that the Kingdom of God embraces all aspects of human life. “The Church is one social institution alongside of the family, the industrial organization of society, and the State. The Kingdom of God is in all these, and realizes itself through them all” (Ibid., 145). The Kingdom of God can be progressively realized with the co-operation of the divine and the human, but the Kingdom of God can never be perfectly realized. Rauschenbusch did not expect utopia to arrive within the contingencies of human history, but he did think it was possible to create a better social order than the one offered by capitalism.
When he took God by the hand and called him “our Father,” he democratized the conception of God. He disconnected the idea from the coercive and predatory State and transferred it to the realm of family life, the chief embodiment of solidarity and love. He not only saved humanity; he saved God (Ibid., 174-175).
The Social Gospel succeeds to the spirit of the Reformation by liberating humanity from wrong concepts of God (Ibid., 177). Rauschenbusch contends that the immanence of God to humanity is the foundation for democratic notions of God. The democratic notion of God asserts God’s solidarity with human beings for the Kingdom of God against the forces of evil that oppress human life. “The consciousness of solidarity, therefore, is of the essence of religion” (Ibid., 186).
Jesus Christ, for Rauschenbusch, is the initiator of the Kingdom of God. Rasuchenbusch is not interested in the traditional exposition of Jesus Christ as a hypostatic union of the divine and the human. Rather, he looks to Jesus as “the perfect religious personality” (Ibid., 154) who overcame “mysticism”, “pessimism”, and “asceticism”, by virtue of his consciousness of God (Ibid., 155-157). Jesus lived out through his earthly life what he taught about the Kingdom of God. In this sense, Rauschenbusch says, “The fundamental first step in the salvation of mankind was the achievement of the personality of Jesus. Within him the Kingdom of God got its first foothold in humanity. It was by virtue of his personality that he became the initiator of the Kingdom” (Ibid., 151). Jesus’ teachings on the Kingdom of God, Rauschenbusch firmly believes, provide a solid foundation for the Social Gospel’s understanding of the Kingdom.
Rauschenbusch defines the nature of the Christian Church in relation to the Kingdom of God; the Church must not exist for itself, but for the Kingdom, which gives the Church power to save. Rauschebusch operates with an instrumental concept of the Church; it exists to serve the Kingdom of God. For him, the Church is “the social factor in salvation” (Ibid., 118), which ‘brings social forces to bear on evil. It offers Christ not only many human bodies and minds to serve as ministers of his salvation, but its own composite personality, with a collective memory stored with great hymns and Bible stories an deeds of heroism, with trained aesthetic and moral feelings, and with a collective will set on righteousness” (Ibid., 119). Rauschenbusch was a committed Baptist throughout his life. He adhered passionately to a congregational form of the church characterized by suspicion of hierarchy and creeds, but firmly in favor of democratic government. Rauschenbusch offers little in the way of reflection upon the doctrine of the Church, because the Church is so thoroughly subordinated to the doctrine of the Kingdom of God.
The final chapter in A Theology for the Social Gospel interprets the doctrine of Atonement in the light of two modern principles: personality and solidarity. Rauschenbusch is clear that the sins of humanity caused the death of Jesus and the spiritual situation of human beings has been changed by the death of Jesus. He rejects any theory of atonement conceived as “a legal theory of imputation” (Ibid., 259) in favor of “a conception of spiritual solidarity” (Ibid.). Rauschenbusch argues that social sins ultimately sent Jesus to the cross: religious bigotry, political power, a corruption of justice, mob spirit and mob action, militarism, and class contempt. The cross “was the conclusive demonstration of the power of sin in humanity” (Ibid., 267) and “the supreme revelation of love” (Ibid., 270). The death of Jesus is an example of vicarious suffering. “It has inspired courage and defiance of evil, and sent men on lost hopes. The cross of Christ put God’s approval on the sacrificial impulse in the hearts of the brave, and dignified it by connecting it with one of the central dogmas of our faith. The cross has become the motive and method of noble personalities” (Ibid., 278). The cross inspires the cause of prophetic religion and strengthens the redemptive power of the Kingdom of God.
Rauschenbusch’s concept of the Kingdom of God was a product of reflection upon his pastoral experience in New York in the light of nineteenth century German liberal theology. He never embraced the new perspective on the Kingdom of God as an apocalyptic supernatural irruption into history advocated by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer at the beginning of the twentieth century. Reinhold Niebuhr similarly witnessed the hardship and poverty of the urban industrial working class as a pastor in the city of Detroit, home to Henry Ford’s automobile manufacturing plants. Niebuhr was critical of his predecessor, but, in reality, built upon his insights into systemic evil. The charge of sentimentality that Niebuhr leveled against the Social Gospel Movement can hardly be justified in the case of Walter Rauschenbusch, who was consistently alert to the reality of sin and the necessity of struggle to advance the Kingdom of God. Martin Luther King, Jr., a fellow Baptist who became the key spokesman in the civil rights movement, which strove to achieve parity for African-Americans in the 1950s, found inspiration in his fellow Baptist, when he studied Rauschenbusch’s writings in seminary. Rauschenbusch provided a great deal of the theological rationale for seeking social change by nonviolent means, an approach adopted by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. More recently, James McClendon, also a Baptist theologian, has identified Walter Rauschenbusch as part of the community of reference that has shaped his own theological vision (McClendon, 1994, 57-58). McClendon constantly engages with American culture in church and society in the course of his three volume systematic theology and seeks to evaluate both in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. McClendon comments wryly on A Theology for the Social Gospel, “…it is a lively book because it combats concrete evil. Sadly, such evil persists; many of Rauschenbusch’s pages might have been written yesterday” (Ibid., 57).
Dorien, Gary. 1995. Soul in Society: The Making and Renewal of Social Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
. 2003. The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity 1900-1950. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Evans, Christopher H. 2004. The Kingdom is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
McClendon, James. 1994. Doctrine: Systematic Theology. Vol. 2. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
. 1907 [Harper Torchbooks Edition 1964]. Christianity and the Social Crisis. Edited by Robert D. Cross. New York: Harper & Row.
. 1912. Christianizing the Social Order. New York: Macmillan.
. 1916. The Social Principles of Jesus. New York: Grosset and Dunlap.
. 1917 [Library of Theological Ethics Edition 1997]. A Theology for the Social Gospel. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press.
Robbins, Anna M. 2004. Methods in the Madness: Diversity in Twentieth-Century Christian Social Ethics. Paternoster Theological Monographs. Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press.


KENDRICK Lamar, Lorde, Khalid, The Wombats and Vampire Weekend headline a huge line-up for this year's Splendour in the Grass.
This will be Lamar's second visit to Byron Bay after he performed at Bluesfest two years ago.
His hit song Humble also took out the top spot in last year's Hottest 100 music poll.
Vampire Weekend also return to Byron after playing Falls Festival in 2014.
Lorde told Triple J she was excited to be coming back to Splendour after being a last-minute addition to the festival five years ago.
"I am so excited. Last time was my first big festival show. Obviously Frank Ocean pulled out and they called me... it was so crazy,” she said.
Rising Australian hip hop star Baker Boy is among a stack of Aussie artists also on the bill, including Amy Shark, Angus and Julia Stone, Hilltop Hoods and The Avalanches.
Despite having a suspicious, Splendour-shaped hole in his tour schedule, Jack White was not amongst the acts unveiled on Wednesday, April 11.
The three-day music festival is now in its 18th year and has been held in the Byron Bay area all but two of those years, when it temporarily relocated to Woodfordia on the Sunshine Coast.
Splendour in the Grass will be held at the North Byron Parklands from Friday, July 20, to Sunday, July 22.
Tickets go on sale next Thursday, April 19, at 9am via Moshtix.


Come in and enjoy learning tribal-style belly dance, a contemporary twist on belly dance.
Enjoy a fun environment alongside other women learning a beautiful dance form. Be comfortable and be proud of your feminine shape, a dance for all women, ageless and sizeless.
Wear comfortable clothing (not jeans) to be able to move comfortably and a water bottle.