American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas

by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Walter Rauschenbusch likewise described Nietzsche’s philosophy as the “direct out-growth” of the social world of industrialization, speculating that there exists “an intimate causal connection between the industrial system which evolves the modern captain of industry and the philosophy of Nietzsche which justifies and glorifies him.” This was the only way Rauschenbusch could explain why the “philosophy of Nietzsche,” which “scouts the Christian virtues as the qualities of slaves” and “glorifies the strong man’s self-assertion which treads underfoot whatever hinders him from living out his life to the full,” was “deeply affecting the ethical thought of the modern world.”44 Reflecting on the consistent sentiment animating his theology and social activism, he argued that his “social point of view” and his “Christian social convictions” were “the direct negation of Nietzsche.”