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The Impact of Business on Protestantism, 1900–29

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

William T. Doherty
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History at the University of Arkansas

Abstract

The effects of religion on business have inspired much schohrly inquiry, but the effects of business on religion have yet to be studied systematically. The following article draws several themes from a study of commercial periodicals, the religious press, and biographies. The indifference to theology of many businessmen furthered the interdenominational movement. This influence, coupled with a demand for “efficiency in religious affairs, stimulated a movement to merge churches. Some businessmen and religious leaders urged that such business techniques as advertising be adapted to the use of churches. A substantial body of literature arose which sought to transform religious prophets into businessmen and religious texts into manuals explaining how to succeed in business.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1954

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References

1 For example see Babson, Roger, “Do Praying Fathers Have Preying Sons?”, Davis, Jerome W., ed., Business and the Church (New York, 1926), 50Google Scholar; Sumner, Keene, “The Kind of Parents Our Big Business Men Had,” American Magazine, Vol. 101 (March, 1926), 15.Google Scholar

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3 Carnegie, Andrew, Autobiography (Boston, 1920), 23.Google Scholar One biographer of Carnegie has insisted that Carnegie had no religion beyond a broad belief in a controlling force and the probability of a hereafter of some sort; that Carnegie held Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius and Christ as equally good teachers “each in his own day and own way”; and that Carnegie could discover no difference in religion not traceable to temperaments and temperatures. Winkler, John K., Incredible Carnegie (New York, 1931), 16.Google Scholar

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16 There was and continues to be a large body of material concerning the business value of tithing. For example, see Shepherd, William G., “Men Who Tithe,” Worlds Work, Vol. 48 (July, 1924), 360Google Scholar; McCafferty, E. D., Henry J. Heinz (New York, 1923), 196.Google Scholar Of course, not all businessmen were tithers. Of the group who were not, James B. Duke probably expressed one attitude when he said, “I am going to give a good part to the Lord, but I can make better interest for Him by keeping it while I live.” Jenkins, John Wilbur, James B. Duke (New York, 1927), 80.Google Scholar

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21 Bush, Irving T., “A Business Man's View of Religion, Outlook, Vol. 146 (1927), 450.Google Scholar In this article Bush contended that a businessman's belief should be so simple that he could kneel in a Mohammedan mosque, or a Hindu temple, giving thanks to a Power beyond all beliefs. “Does it really matter,” Bush asked, whether the worshipper believes his God is in the wooden image before which he kneels, in the heavens above, or in his own heart?” Doubt concerning miracles should not upset the businessman's belief, he contended, for there was enough religion left if all miracles were discarded.

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24 Of course not all church leaders accepted such values. Of the opposite opinion was Dr. W. J. Dawson, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Newark, who was reported as saying, “… it is more essential today to restore a profound reverence for religious ideals than to organize a church for popular success by business methods.” Christian Century, Vol. 41 (28 Aug. 1924), 1, 119.

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27 There was voluminous literature in the popular periodicals about the necessity for a new type of preacher. According to the Nation, Vol. 95 (Oct., 1912), 402–3, in an article entitled “Efficiency Tests for Clergymen,” the moderator of the General Assembly of Presbyterian ministers had been especially severe upon the clergy for their shocking waste of time and energy and desired that the pastor become a “driving man of business.” Leupp, Francis E., “The Minister and the Men,” Atlantic, Vol. 106 (July, 1910), 5053Google Scholar, suggested a probationary period for the minister as a farmer, merchant, clerk, or a mechanic before he assumed his duties of caring for men's souls. See also Kenna, James Brett, “Minister or Business Executive,” Harpers, Vol. 157 (June, 1928), 3844.Google Scholar Conwell noted that some of the “brightest preachers on earth, those who will deliver their sermons with impressiveness to the heart and mind, and whose spiritual fervor never seems to cease, make entire shipwrecks of their church life.” Conwell, Russell H., “The Church in the Future,” Hurlburt, Jesse L., ed., Sunday Half Hours with Great Preachers (Chicago, 1907), 591.Google Scholar

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29 See Davis, Jerome, “A Study of Protestant Church Boards of Control,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 38 (1932), 431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar F. L. S. Harman, secretary of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce commented, however, upon the tendency of church trustees who were models of business accuracy in their own commercial enterprises to treat the business of the church in a slovenly fashion. Christian Century, Vol. 43 (29 July 1926), 932.

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36 It has been suggested that the alliance between religion and business advertising came into being at the time of World War I, when religion and the Chamber of Commerce mounted the same platform to engage in the selling of war bonds. See Jesse Sprague, Rainsford, High Pressure (New York, 1938)Google Scholar, chap. v. See also Rorty, James, Our Master's Voice: Advertising (New York, 1934), chaps. 18, 19, 20.Google Scholar

37 Regarding the reinterpretation movement, a religious periodical said: “It is interesting and sometimes pathetic to see how each age and generation, each culture and civilization, attempts to authenticate its most cherished ideals by writing them into the character of Jesus.” Bouck White's The Call of the Carpenter, in which Christ was made the patron saint of the revolutionary movement, was suggested as antidote to the business reinterpretation. “Jesus as Efficiency Expert,” Christian Century, Vol. 42 (2 July 1925), 851–2.

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42 See Douglass, Lloyd C., “Comely Praise,” Christian Century, Vol. 43 (21 Jan. 1926), 76Google Scholar, on effective and businesslike newspaper publicity for churches.

43 See Smith, Roy L., Winning Ways for Working Churches (New York, 1932), 165Google Scholar; Reisner, Church Publicity, 283; Christian Century, Vol. 42 (20 Aug. 1925), 1,054.

44 For economic and spiritual significance of the Bible to the earlier American businessman, see Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt, 320; Appel, Business Biography of John Wanamaker, 16–17.

45 “The Book that has helped most in Business,” American Magazine, Vol. 84 (24 Dec. 1917), 103. This article was anonymous, although it has been disclosed that Hershey helped to sponsor its publication. Snavely, Milton S. Hershey, Builder, 221.

46 Knopf, Karl Sumner, “Hollywood opens its Bible,” Christian Century, Vol. 45 (20 Dec. 1928), 1,553–4Google Scholar.

47 Painter, Walter, “Give Moses a Chance,” Colliers, Vol. 75 (10 Jan. 1925), 29.Google Scholar

48 Ibid.

49 Bruce Barton, “Human Appeals in Copy,” Frederick, J. George, ed., Masters of Advertising Copy (New York, 1925), 6869.Google Scholar

50 Barton, Bruce, The Man Nobody Knows (Indianapolis, 1925), 89.Google Scholar

51 Atterbury, Anson P., “The Many Sided Christ,” Biblical World, Vol. 25 (1905), 450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Ashley, W. B., “The First Successful Church Advertiser,” Ashley, W. B., ed., Church Advertising Its Why and How (Philadelphia, 1917), 98.Google Scholar

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54 Ashley, in Ashley, ed., Church Advertising, 108.

55 D. W. Wiegle, “Cause and Effect,” W. B. Ashley, ed., Church Advertising, 21–22.

56 As examples of both Old and New Testament personalities there existed “no finer example of service salesmanship than the story of Apostle Paul,” John Lee Mahin, “The Preacher as a Salesman,” W. B. Ashley, ed., Church Advertising, 186. See also Knopf, , “Hollywood opens its Bible,” Christian Century (20 Dec. 1928), 1, 553.Google ScholarBrown, Charles Reynolds, These Twelve (New York, 1926), 136Google Scholar, called attention to Matthew as a Man of Business. See Painter, , “Give Moses a Chance,” Colliers. (10 Jan. 1925), 29Google Scholar, for use of the figures, Mary and Martha, in advertising.

57 Barton, Bruce, “The Greatest Men in the Bible,” Colliers, Vol. 77 (20 Feb. 1926), 10.Google Scholar See also Barton, Bruce, “The Bible's Greatest Women,” Colliers, Vol. 77 (20 March 1926), 7.Google Scholar

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60 Quoted by Sprague, Jesse Rainsford, “Religion in Business,” Harpers, Vol. 155 (Sept., 1927), 435.Google Scholar

61 Not only were men and women of the Bible transformed into business figures; so were the children of the Bible. To three descendants of Cain the debt for the beginning of the modern world was owed. Jabal began the organization of the food business, Jubal was the father of music, and Tubalcain was the first blacksmith, or “founder of industry.” Barton, Bruce, “Children of the Bible,” Good Housekeeping, Vol. 88 (Jan., 1929), 169.Google Scholar

62 Christian Century, Vol. 42 (21 May 1925), 658.

63 Christian Century, Vol. 41 (28 Aug. 1924), 1,122; Christian Century, Vol. 51 (16 May 1934), 660.