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The Emergence of Social Gospel Radicalism: The Methodist Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William McGuire King
William McGuire King
Affiliation:
Mr. King is assistant professor of religious studies in the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Extract

What happened to the social gospel impulse after World War I? Recent historians have demonstrated that many reformers did not bid farewell to reform in the 1920s.1 In the case of Protestant social liberalism, however, the precise relationship between postwar social action and the prewar social gospel movement requires further clarification. Was the former merely a continuation of the latter? Such a question is currently difficult to answer since few major studies of the social gospel bridge both historical periods. Indeed, the death or retirement by 1918 of so many early leaders of the social gospel movement, particularly Washington Gladden, Josiah Strong, and Walter Rauschenbusch, leaves the impression that an era had come to a close.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 1981 , pp. 436 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1981

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References

1. On religious reformers, see Carter, Paul A., The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel (Ithaca, N.Y., 1954);Google ScholarChatfield, E. Charles, For Peace and Justice (Boston, 1971);Google ScholarHughley, J. Neal, Trends in Protestant Social Idealism (New York, 1948);Google ScholarMeyer, Donald B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1949 (Berkeley, 1960);Google Scholar and Miller, Robert Moats, American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1919–1939 (Chapel Hill, 1958).Google Scholar On secular reformers, see Chambers, Clarke A., Seedtime of Reform (Minneapolis, 1963);Google ScholarGraham, OtisL. Jr, An Encore for Reform (New York, 1967);Google ScholarLink, Arthur S., “What Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920's?” American Historical Review 64 (07 1959):833–851;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Margulies, Herbert, “Recent Opinion on the Decline of the Progressive Movement,” Mid-America 45 (10 1963):250–260.Google Scholar

2. Carter, pp. 140–142; Miller, pp. 31, 63; and Meyer, p. 172.

3. On this earlier form of radicalism, see Dombrowski, James, The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America (New York, 1936);Google ScholarMay, Henry F., Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York, 1949);Google ScholarHandy, Robert, “Christianity and Socialism in America, 1900–1920,” Church History 21 (03 1952):39–54;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Frederick, Peter J., Knights of the Golden Rule (Lexington, Ky., 1976).Google Scholar

4. Norman Thomas had personal and intellectual affinities with social gospel radicalism. For the influence of the social gospel on Thomas and conflicting views of his effectiveness as a radical, see Johnpoll, Bernard K., Pacifist's Progress (Chicago, 1970);Google ScholarSwanberg, W. A., Norman Thomas (New York, 1976);Google Scholar and Warren, Frank A., An Alternative Vision (Bloomington, Ind., 1974).Google Scholar

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7. North and McConnell were presidents of the Federal Council of Churches. Ward was professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and ACLU chairman. Tippy was secretary of the Federal Council's Commission on Social Service. Devine was secretary of the Charity Organization Society of New York City and editor of The Survey. Tittle was a nationally renowned liberal preacher. Oxnam was president of the World Council of Churches.

8. On the relationship of the MFSS to the General Conference, see Huber, Milton John, “A History of the Methodist Federation for Social Action” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1949);Google Scholar and Tholin, Richard, “Prophetic Action and Denominational Unity” (Th.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1967).Google Scholar

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11. In addition to the aforementioned names, data for this study came from the lives of Herbert Welch, Harris Rall, Winifred Chappell, Grace Scribner, Fred Fisher, George Coe, and Homer Folks.

12. Quoted in Fisher, Welthy H., Frederick Bohn Fisher (New York, 1944), p. 11.Google Scholar

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18. These distinctions were applied to the social and religious thought of Shailer Mathews, Francis Greenwood Peabody, and Walter Rauschenbusch in William McGuire King, “The Biblical Base of the Social Gospel,” to appear in a volume edited by Ernest R.Sandeen entitled The Bible and Social Reform in America (Fortress Press, forthcoming). These positions should not be confused with Henry May's typology of conservative, progressive, and radical social Christianity. Only May's middle type characterized the social gospel; and while his typology is helpful in explaining the 1880s and 1890s, it is less useful for twentieth-century developments.

19. Ward, Harry, Social Evangelism (New York, 1915), p. 2.Google Scholar

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28. Coe, , Psychology of Religion, p. 222.Google Scholar

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30. “Our concern is… with the kind of environment that [capitalism] has created for religion and the way in which its powerful and permeating forces have conditioned faith and life” (Rall, Harris Franklin, Christianity [New York, 1940], p. 121).Google Scholar

31. For a similar analysis, see Terrill, Ross, R. H. Tawney and His Times (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).Google Scholar Ward endorsed Tawney's Christian Socialism (Ward to Henry Lewis, summer 1920, “Correspondence, 1920–1922,” Ward Papers, box 3, Union Theological Seminary, New York).

32. “The community has just as much right to undertake modification in the institution of private property as it has to undertake modifications in any other social instrument whatsoever” (McConnell, , Personal Christianity, p. 200).Google Scholar

33. “Both the realm of nature and the inner life of individuals and communities offer little in the way of permanent resistance to the stream of changes in the midst of which we live” (McConnell, , Increase of Faith [New York, 1922], pp. 207–208).Google Scholar

34. “In the present state of society we can only attain to a sort of rough justice,” noted McConnell, but “at least the aim should be justice” (McConnell, , Christian Principles and Industrial Reconstruction [New York, 1919], p. 10).Google Scholar

35. “Minutes of the MFSS, 1907–1930,” MFSS Papers, Drew University, Madison, N.J.; Welch, , As I Recall, p. 54;Google Scholar and Ward to Milton John Huber, 27 October 1949, MFSS Papers, Ardsley, N.Y.

36. See Social Service Bulletin 7 (05 1917):2;Google Scholar and ibid. (July 1917):2–3.

37. Ward, Harry, The Christian Demand for Social Reconstruction (Philadelphia, 1918), pp. 31–35.Google Scholar

38. See Social Service Bulletin 7 (01 1917):1;Google Scholaribid. (November 1917):1; and Ibid. (December 1919):1–4.

39. Social Service Bulletin 9 (01-02 1919):1–4.Google Scholar

40. See King, William McGuire, “The Emergence of Social Gospel Radicalism in American Methodism” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1978), pp. 271–292.Google Scholar

41. See Benjamin, Walter, “Bishop Francis J. McConnell and the Great Steel Strike of 1919–1920,” in Henry, Stuart C., ed., A Miscellany of American Christianity (Durham, N.C., 1963), pp. 22–47;Google ScholarBrody, David, Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919 (Philadelphia, 1965);Google ScholarEnsley, Philip C., “The Interchurch World Movement and the Steel Strike of 1919,” Labor History 13 (Spring 1972):217–230;Google ScholarErnst, Eldon, Moment of Truth for Protestant America (Missoula, Mont., 1974);Google Scholar and Warne, Colston E.. ed., The Steel Strike of 1919 (Boston, 1963).Google Scholar

42. Warne, pp. vii-x; and Brody, pp. 7–8, 187–188.

43. After weeks of exhausting labor, the bishop laid the completed manuscript down, exclaiming, “This is my legacy for my children” (Dorothy McConnell to William McGuire King, 25 March 1976).

44. Commission of Inquiry of the Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 (New York, 1920), pp. 16–19.Google Scholar

45. Tippy to Daniel E. Poling, 25 February 1920, Tippy Papers, DC 620, folder 3.

46. Social Service Bulletin 14(15 02 1924):2.Google Scholar

47. Tittle, Ernest, What Must the Church Do to Be Saved? (New York, 1921), p. 108.Google Scholar

48. Quoted in High, Stanley, ed., Youth Looks at the Church (New York, 1926), p. 30.Google Scholar

49. Luccock, Halford, “The Resurrection of Jesus Taking Place To-day,” in Through the Eyes of Youth, ed. Luccock, Halford and Reid, William (New York, 1924), p. 171.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., pp. 74–76, 99, 143, 162–164.

51. The relationship between the peace movement and economic radicalism has been meticulously documented in Chatfield, For Peace and Justice.