Social religion, too, demands repentance and faith; repentance for our social sins; faith in the possibility of a new social order. . . . In the same way we have to see through the fictions of capitalism. We are assured that the poor are poor through their own fault; that rent and profit are the just dues of foresight and ability; that the immigrants are the cause of corruption in our city politics; that we cannot compete with foreign countries unless our working class will descend to the wages paid abroad. These are all very plausible assertions, but they are lies dressed up in truth. . . . Industrialism as a whole sends out deceptive prospectuses just like single corporations within it. But in the main these misleading theories are the self-deception of those who profit by present conditions and are loath to believe that their life is working harm. It is very rare for a man to condemn the means by which he makes a living, and we must simply make allowance for the warping influence of self-interest when he justifies himself and not believe him entirely.

Source: Walter T. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 349, 350, 351.