He (Walter) wished to go as a missionary to India, but one of the professors to the theological seminary objected to his 'liberal' views on the Old Testament, and the Baptist Board refused to appoint him.
He holds a high regard on (John) Ruskin (1819-1900) whom he described as the most christlike tinker in all literature.
He (framed the theology of the social gospel) in the context of the Kingdom of God, namely: 1) The kingdom of God was a social hope for Jesus...which involved not only a redemption of individuals, but also a redemption of society; 2) Jesus repudiated the idea of bloodshed and violence as a means of ushering in the Kingdom; 3) He taught that it would come by organic growth rather than by divine catastrophe; 4) He made it not a Jewish but a universal Kingdom; and 5) He taught that it was a present reality, and not merely a future hope.
[Water's] main departure from the traditional formulation was in its center of gravity, its organizing principle. Not justification by faith as in the Lutheran theology, and not the sovereignty of God as in the Reformed theology, but the kingdom of God was the center to which all else must be related.
Christianity stresses both - salvation for the little personality of man and for the great collective personality of mankind.
According to Walter, the underlying causes of present crisis were the industrial revolution, the rise of capitalism, and the private ownership of land.
Christianity and the Social Crisis ... was written "with the learning of the scholar, the vision of the poet, and the passion of the prophet.
As he meditated on the life problems of the people, he wrote many of the prayers on railway trains.
Let the church of Christ fling in, not the sword, but the cross, not against the weak, but for them.
He says, "Create a ganglion of redeemed personalities in a commonwealth and all things become possible."
The traditional theology is inclined to emphasize the "Fall" of our first parents and to neglect the contribution which our more recent forefathers have made to the sin and misery of mankind.
Salvation is not complete unless it commits a man to the ideals of the Kingdom, unless in some germinal and rudimentary form he has turned from a life centered on self toward a life going out toward God and his purpose for mankind. Conversion has usually been conceived as a break with our sinful past, but in many cases it is also a break with the sinful past of a social group.
Sin ruins, righteousness establishes, and love consolidates.
An outlook toward the future in which the spiritual life is saved and the economic life is left unsaved is both unchristian and stupid.
Belief in a future life is not essential to religious faith.
He endeavored to answer three questions: 1) How did Jesus bear sins which he did not commit? Answer: he bore the weight and suffered the consequences of public sins...2) How did Christ's death affect God? Answer: Christ has begun to lift men to a new basis of spiritual existence...; 3) How does Christ's death affect man? Answer: among many, 1) it [demonstrates] the power of sin in humanity; 2) [power of] love... 3) ...inspires Christ's followers to carry on the work which he has begun.
Comments: in my opinion what Walter advocates is found all in the believers' fellowship as seen in Acts 2:42-47, 1 John 1:1-11, Revelation 4; and the (social meaning of the) Lord's prayer, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven, give us our daily bread, forgive us of our sins as we have forgiven our debtors, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
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