Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:01:16.748Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Background for the Social Gospel in American Protestantism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Maurice C. Latta
Affiliation:
Olivet College

Extract

Although the social gospel has been described as “the first expression of American religious life which is truly born in America itself,” it was evoked upon the American scene by forces, world-wide in scope, which have everywhere brought about similar reactions in the field of religion. The full setting in of the industrial revolution in country after country of Western civilization created such problems for religion as to lead within a generation to a vigorous enunciation of a social ethic by alert religious leaders of the country. The decade of the 1770's in England saw the beginnings of what Lewis Mumford calls the “paleotechnic” phase of civilization and within a generation Wilberforce and the “Clapham Sect” were thundering against the iniquities of the slave trade. Despite the passions of the great war with France, the cold rigidities of the “dismal science,” and the distracting ecclesiastical convulsions of the Oxford Movement, the development of a social emphasis in religion went on to find expression in the charities of Peabody and Shaftesbury, and the positive teachings of Maurice and Kingsley.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1936

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hooft, W. A. Visser 't, The Background of the Social Gospel in America, Haarlem, 1928, 186.Google Scholar

2 Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization, New York, 1934, 155.Google Scholar

3 See Russell, G. W. E., A Short History of the Evangelical Movement, London, 1915Google Scholar; Trevelyan, G. M., British History in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1928, 5054, et passim.Google Scholar

4 Eckel, E. C., Coal, Iron and War, New York, 1920, 4850Google Scholar; Cole, Arthur C., The Irrepressible Conflict, (A History of American Life, Sehlesinger, Arthur M. and Fox, Dixon Ryan, Editors, Vol. VII), New York, 1934, ch. 1.Google Scholar

5 Hooft, Visser 't, 2324Google Scholar; Mathews, Shatter, “The Development of Social Christianity in America during the past Twenty-Five Years,” Journal of Religion, VII, (07, 1927), 376386Google Scholar; Buckley, George W., “The Churches and Social Questions,” Arena, XX, (08, 1898), 208.Google Scholar

6 Hooft, Visser 't, 187.Google Scholar

7 For an admirable commentary upon this phrase, as well as a fine example of its historical treatment, see Becker, Carl, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, New Haven, 1932.Google Scholar

8 The social and economic aspects in the pertinent volumes of A History of American Life, viz., Nevins, Allan, The Emergence of Modern America, N. Y., 1932Google Scholar, Schlesinger, Arthur M., The Rise of the City, N. Y., 1933Google Scholar, and Faulkner, Harold U., The Quest for Social Justice, N. Y., 1931Google Scholar; the ideational background in Hooft, Visser 't, op. cit.Google Scholar; and the “climate of opinion” in Parrington, Vernon L., Beginnings of Critical Realism, (Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. III), N. Y., 1930.Google Scholar

9 See Josephson, Matthew, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, New York, 1934.Google Scholar

10 Andrews, E. Benjamin, “The Combination of Capital,” International Journal of Ethics, IV, (04, 1894), 321.Google Scholar

11 Note, for instance, the great alarm apparent in the Arena and the Andover Review, the one a radical secular periodical, the other a socially conservative theological quarterly. See also Shortt, Adam, “The Evolution of the Relation between Capital and Labor,” Andover Review, XI, (02, 1889), 144161.Google Scholar

12 Andover Review, XII, (08, 1889), 213.Google Scholar

13 “The Relation of Corporations to Public Morals,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LII, (10, 1895), 617.Google Scholar

14 By Stimson, Henry A., in The Atlantic, XCIII, (03, 1904), 337340.Google Scholar

15 Batchelor, George, “The Revolt of the Majority,” Forum, I, (08, 1886), 516517Google Scholar; Wheeler, A. S., “The Labor Question,” Andover Review, VI, (11, 1886), 478.Google Scholar

16 “Social Duties,” Biblical World, XXX, (07, 1907), 19.Google Scholar See also Mathews, , “Men or Institutions,” Biblical World, XXVII, (01, 1906), 3241.Google Scholar

17 “Is it Peace or War?,” Century, XXXII, (08, 1886), 567570.Google Scholar

18 Brown, Thomas E., Studies in Modern Socialism ana Labor Problems, New York, 1886, 125126.Google Scholar

19 Peabody, A. P., “Wealth,” Andover Review, XIX, (05, 1893), 329.Google Scholar

20 Fox, Norman, before and reported in The Baptist Congress for the Discussion of Current Questions, 5th Session (1886), 59Google Scholar; Metcalf, Henry B., “Some Thoughts About Capital and Labor,” Andover Seview, VI (07, 1886), 52Google Scholar; Hall, Edward H., in Christian Register, LXXII, (01 5, 1893), 3Google Scholar; Hillis, Newell Dwight, in The Atlantic, LXV, (01, 1903), 478Google Scholar; Bibliotheca Sacra, LII, (04, 1895), 360, 361.Google Scholar

21 Briggs, Charles A., “The Alienation of Church and People,” Forum, XVI, (11, 1893), 366378Google Scholar; Pierson, Arthur T., “Christian Cooperation and the Social Mission of the Chureh,” Missionary Review of the World, XVII, (03, 1894), 163165Google Scholar; Fagan, James O., “The Cheapening of Religion,” The Atlantic, CVI, (10, 1910), 455.Google Scholar

22 See the inconclusive results of a questionnaire circulated among church and labor leaders by the Massachusetts Congregational Association, reported in Coyle, John P., “The Churches and Labor Unions,” Forum, XIII, (08, 1892), 765770.Google Scholar

23 For a convenient statement of the practice of the medieval church, see Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, London, 1926Google Scholar, chap. 1; Haney, Lewis H., History of Economic Thought, New York, 1920, 85100.Google Scholar

24 Lippmann, Walter, A Preface to Morals, New York, 1929, 84111.Google Scholar

25 Tawney, , op. cit., 193.Google Scholar

26 Bascom, John, “Economics and Ethics,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LXII, (04, 1905), 212.Google Scholar

27 Tawney, , op. cit., chap. III.Google Scholar

28 Wheeler, A. S., “The Labor Question,” Andover Review, VI, (11, 1886), 475.Google Scholar See also Bocock, Kemper, “Labor's Claims on Organized Christianity,” Social Economist (Gunton's), IV, (06, 1893), 366Google Scholar; “Phaserd” in Ibid., V, (December, 1893), 366.

29 Holbrook, Z. Swift, “The American Republic and the Debs Insurrection,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LII, (04, 1895), 214215.Google Scholar

30 Applied Christianity: Moral Aspects of Social Questions, Boston, 1886 and 1914, 52.Google Scholar See also p. 45, and Gladden, Is Labor a Commodity?Forum, I, (07, 1886), 468476.Google Scholar

31 Gladden, , “Socialism and Unsocialism,” Forum, III, (04, 1887), 129.Google Scholar

32 The Rev. P. S. Moxom, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston, before Baptist Congress, 5th Session (1886), 43.Google Scholar

33 Andrews, E. B., “Individualism as a Sociological Principle,” Yale Review, II, (05, 1893), 26.Google Scholar

34 Taylor, Graham, “The Social Function of the Church,” American Journal of Socialogy, V, (11, 1899), 313.Google Scholar

35 Hooft, Visser 't, op. cit., 3839.Google Scholar

36 Roosevelt and His America, New York, 1933, 1216.Google Scholar

37 Gronlund, Laurence, The Co-Operative Commonwealth, Boston, 1884Google Scholar; de Laveleye, Emile, Socialism of To-Day, London, 1884Google Scholar; Rae, John, Contemporary Socialism, London, 1884.Google Scholar

38 For the completest early statements in regard to socialism and the Christian attitude toward it see Brown, , Modern SocialismGoogle Scholar, and Gladden, , Christianity and Socialism, New York, 1905.Google Scholar

39 See The Churchman, LXXV, (01 23, 1897), 113Google Scholar; Christian Register, LXXII, (11 23, 1893), 737.Google Scholar

40 Andrews, E. B., “Socialism,” Hartford Seminary Record, IV, (02, 1894), 130.Google Scholar

41 Cooke, George Willis, “Socialism in the Light of History,” Andover Review, XIV, (09, 1890), 249.Google Scholar

42 The Churchman, LXXV, (01 2, 1897), 8.Google Scholar

43 Scudder, Vida D., “Socialism and Spiritual Progress—A Speculation,” Andover Review, XVI, (07, 1891), 51.Google Scholar

44 For a variety of views upon this subject see Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London, 1930Google Scholar; Tawney, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Nussbaum, Frederick L., A History of the Economic Institutions of Modern Europe, New York, 1934Google Scholar, the last work being an English abridgement of Sombart, 's great Moderne Capitalismus.Google Scholar

45 Gladden, , “Religion and Wealth,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LII, (01, 1895), 157.Google Scholar See, also, Biblical World, XVIII, (08, 1901), 8687Google Scholar; Coe, George A., The Religion of a Mature Mind, Chicago, 1902, 170171Google Scholar; Harnack, Adolf, What Is Christianity?, New York, 1901, 8595Google Scholar; Merrill, Charles C., “The Christian Conception of Wealth,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LVI, (01, 1899), 148159.Google Scholar

46 Aked, Charles F., “The Salvation of Christianity,” Appleton's, XIII, (01, 1909), 1920Google Scholar, where its inapplicability to modern times is clearly stated.

47 The Rev. Gambrell, J. B., before the Baptist Congress, 11th Session (1893), 17.Google Scholar

48 “Theology said, You cannot trust men, they are wholly disposed to evil: political and commercial life said, You can trust men, they are generally disposed to truth, honesty, and justice. And life proved more than a match for theology.” Abbott, Lyman, Reminiscences, Boston, 1915, 468.Google Scholar

49 Lippmann, , Preface, 53.Google Scholar Lippmann points out the contrast between the liberal and the religious viewpoints. See also Hooft, Visser 't, op. cit.Google Scholar, chap. 4, “The Contribution of the Enlightenment.”

50 The position of the author is well stated by Lippman: “To be saved, in the sense which the sages had in mind, is by conversion, education, and self-discipline to have achieved a certain quality and harmony of the passions. Then the good life is possible. … For it is immature and unregenerate desire which creates the disorders and frustrations that confound us.” Preface to Morals, 198, 208.Google Scholar

51 See Parrington, , Beginnings of Critical Realism.Google Scholar

52 Schlesinger, , Rise of the City, 131136.Google Scholar

53 The social gospel developed in the age of the epicures, of Barry Wall and Diamond Jim Brady, of Rector's and Delmonico's.

54 “Imperialism” was a natural outgrowth of this mood. See Millis, Walter, The Martial Spirit, Boston, 1931.Google Scholar

55 Quoted in Rae, John, Contemporary Socialism, 26.Google Scholar

56 Batchelor, George, “The Revolt of the Majority,” Forum, I, (08, 1886), 515.Google Scholar

57 Rausehenbusch, Walter, “The Stake of the Church in the Social Movement,” American Journal of Sociology, III, (07, 1897), 27Google Scholar; Christian Begister, LXXIII, (02 1, 1894), 65.Google Scholar

58 See Hicks, John D., The Populist Revolt, Minneapolis, 1931.Google Scholar

59 “The various baccalaureate sermons this season make stirring reading. Almost without exception the prevailing note is the appeal to men of cultivation—the men who have had fullest opportunity for preparation, the men presumably best equipped for service—to do their utmost, wisely, untiringly, and devotedly, to help keep the national life sound and pure. … The defeat of the people, as Dr. Bradford put it in his sermon at Amherst College, has been peculiarly marked of late.” Christian Register, LXXVI, (07 1, 1897), 401.Google Scholar

60 Brown, William Adams, The Church in America, New York, 1922, 143Google Scholar; Coe, , Mature Mina, 272.Google Scholar

61 Rauschenbusch, , A Theology for the Social Gospel, New York, 1918, 9697Google Scholar; Seldes, Gilbert, The Stammering Century, New York, 1928, 358.Google Scholar

62 See Hooft, Visser 't, 1617Google Scholar, for an analysis of the process by which social concerns pushed steadily to the fore until, with the most extreme supporters of the social gospel, “the interpenetration of the religious and the social has become so complete as to lead to a total abandonment of all the transcendant elements of Christianity.” p. 17.Google Scholar See also the account of liberalism carried to extreme in Humanism, and the consequent reaction by liberals, in Horton, W. M., Realistic Theology, New York, 1934.Google Scholar For criticism of the resultant see t' Hooft, , pp. 183187.Google Scholar

63 Fagan, James O.The Cheapening of Religion,” The Atlantic, CVI, (10, 1910), 454.Google Scholar

64 Das Reich Gottes in amerikanischer und in deutscher Theologie der Gegenwart, 9Google Scholar, quoted in Hooft, Visser 't, 43.Google Scholar

65 Schlesinger, , Rise of the City, 53.Google Scholar

66 “Danger Ahead,” Century, XXXI, (11, 1885), 5156.Google Scholar

67 See Loomis, S. L., Modern Cities and their Religious Problems, New York, 1887, chap. IIIGoogle Scholar; Strong, Josiah, The New Era, New York, 1893Google Scholar, chap. X; Schlesinger, , Rise of the City, 330334.Google Scholar

68 Schlesinger, , op. cit., 346348.Google Scholar

69 A necessary qualification on this statement is that the periodicals and books examined were nearly all the products of the industrial northeast. The churchmen of this section of the country, however, are the ones most apt to have left records of their thought and expression in print, for, just as most of our early histories were written by New Englanders, so, till a recent date, most of our theology came from the same region. An examination of the writings of western and southern churchmen might show a different situation, but there are good reasons for doubting it.

70 Parishes, such as the one described in Churchill, Winston's novel, The Inside of the Cup, New York, 1913Google Scholar, were as rare and as little typical as ministers like Lewis, Sinclair's Elmer Gantry.Google Scholar

71 Gladden, , Recollections, Boston, 1909, 162.Google Scholar

72 See Parkhurst, Charles H., Our Fight with Tammany, N. Y., 1895.Google Scholar

73 Schlesinger, , Rise of the City, 353360.Google Scholar

74 Slosson, Preston W., The Great Crusade and After, New York, 1931, 430434Google Scholar; Allen, Frederick, Only Yesterday, New York, 1931, 195206.Google Scholar

75 See Horton, , Realistic TheologyGoogle Scholar; Niebuhr, Reinhold, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, New York, 1935.Google Scholar