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Protestant Clergy Debate the Nation's Vocation, 1898–1899

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Winthrop S. Hudson
Winthrop S. Hudson
Affiliation:
Professor of church history in Colgate Rochester/Bexley Hall/ Crozer, Rochester, New York
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Extract

A review in the New York Times observed that “the church abandoned the Negro in the 19th century and took up Hugh Hefner in the 20th. Churchmen in America have always been followers instead of leaders.” While this wry comment is not entirely true, it has enough truth to keep clergymen from undue selfesteem. It is clear, on the other hand, that churchmen on occasion have been leaders as well as followers. An equally wry comment attributed to Lincoln Steffens provides a clue to the clergy's leadership role. Americans, Steffens remarked, never learned to do wrong knowingly. Whenever they compromised with principle, they had to find a pious justification for it. Clerical leadership was especially prominent in the period prior to World War I, since this was a time when the American public looked to the pulpit for its pious justifications.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 110 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1973

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References

1. New York Times Book Review, 10 8, 1967, p. 34.Google Scholar

2. Cited by Pratt, Julius W. in Graven, Avery, ed., Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd, (Chicago, 1935), p. 335.Google Scholar

3. May, Ernest R., American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (New York, 1968), pp. 3–4; 14–16, 192.Google Scholar

4. With his focus on the political process, May defines “public opinion” as the views held by those who vote. In contrast to general public opinion, “effective public opinion” is restricted to a much smaller segment of the electorate. Furthermore, “effective public opinion” varies from issue to issue, being limited to those who are directly concerned with a specific issue. A Boston voter may care little about the price of corn in Iowa, but out of custom and loyalty the Boston voter will passively accept his party's agricultural policy. The majority of the electorate generally is relatively indifferent on issues that do not affect them directly. This is the basis of coalition politics, the uniting of several “effective public opinions” in a rather miscellaneous alliance. May further contends that “effective public opinion” on a specific issue is usually determined by a few “opinion leaders” to whose views the concerned constituency defers because of their reputation for sound judgment, their experience in the area involved, their presumed access to pertinent information, and their usual leadership role. With regard to international affairs, much of the population did not give even passing attention to issues of foreign policy. The proportion of the population that did tended to be concentrated in the cities, especially in the great port cities. On such issues, “opinion leadership” among the clergy did not depend solely on their eminence and general good judgment. It depended much more on having made trips abroad, having maintained influential European contacts who could keep abreast of foreign opinion, and most of all being presumed to have ready access to inside information in Washingtosi. See May, Ibid., pp. 17–43.

5. May's list of clerical opinion leaders is distorted because he identified them on the basis of the “play” which a few daily newspapers gave statements by clergymen on the Spanish issue. These newspapers were not notably impartial in their selection of newsworthy clergymen, the selection being determined to a great extent by the newspaper's editorial position. Thus May ends up with a predominantly “jingoist” list. Conspicuous omissions, for example, include Charles H. Parkhurst, a confidant and advisor to President Cleveland, who returned from Europe to join the fray, and Henry Van Dyke, who also occupied an influential pulpit, was widely traveled and widely consulted, and later served as a United States ambassador.

6. Pratt, J. W., “Spanish-American War,” Dictionary of American History, ed. Adams, J. T.. 5 vols. (New York, 1940), 5, p. 136.Google Scholar

7. Pratt, J. W., Expansionists of 1898 (Baltimore, 1936), pp. 279–316Google Scholar. In assessing Pratt's evidence it is necessary to pay attention to the dates of editorials in the religious press and to distinguish the periodicals of major denominations from those of small religious groups.

8. May, Ernest R., Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power (New York, 1961), pp. 140–31, 147.Google Scholar

9. Outlook, 59 (05 7, 1898), p. 12Google Scholar; Abbott, Lyman, Reminiscences (Boston, 1923), p. 437Google Scholar; Gladden, Washington, Recollections (Boston, 1909), p. 386Google Scholar. See also Advance, 35 (04 28, 1898), p. 383.Google Scholar

10. Outlook, 59 (05 7, 1898), p. 12.Google Scholar

11. Churchman, 77 (03 19, 1898), p. 414.Google Scholar

12. Outlook, 59 (05 7, 1898), p. 11Google Scholar. Earlier when Turkish treatment of Armenians (culminating in the bloodbath of 1894–96) had awakened American sympathies, an attempt had been made to deflect the prevailing “ideological constraint” which inhibited American intervention by putting forward a similar justification framed to be in harmony with the American self-image. Intervention in the hinterland of Turkey, of course, was an impractical proposal. See Reed, James E., “American Foreign Policy, the Politics of Missions and Josiah Strong, 1890–1900”, Church History, 41 (1972), pp. 230–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Standard, 45 (08 6, 1898), 5. 915.Google Scholar

14. Quoted by Healy, David, United States Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge in the 1890's (Madison, 1970), p. 34.Google Scholar

15. Outlook, 59 (05 7, 1898), pp. 11, 13–14.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., (May 14, 1898), pp. 112, 113. Instead of selling the Philippines to Great Britain, the Catholic Herald suggested that Britain should be persuaded to give Canada to the United States in exchange. Pratt, , Expansionists of 1898, p. 312.Google Scholar

17. Outlook, 59 (06 18, 1898), pp. 413–414.Google Scholar

18. Gladden, Washington, “The Issues of the War,” Outlook, 59 (07 16, 1898), pp. 673–75.Google Scholar

19. Outlook, 59 (08 27, 1898), p. 1004Google Scholar. The continuing division of opinion is indicated by a poll of Congregational leaders which elicited 29 replies: 8 responded that the United States should keep the Philippines; 8 that it should not; 3 that they should be returned to Spain with a good government stipulation; 4 that only Manila be retained as a coaling station; 1 that they should be governed by a mixed international commission; 2 had no opinion. Advance, 36 (09 8, 1898), pp. 294–299.Google Scholar

20. Watchman, 79 (08 11, 1898), p. 5Google Scholar; (August 25, 1898), pp. 8–9; (September 15, 1898), p. 7; (September 22, 1898), p. 7; (December 1, 1898), pp. 6–7.

21. Standard, 45 (May 14, May 21, June 11, August 27, 1898), pp. 715–732, 763, 960–61; 46 (November 19, 1898), p. 206. Van Dyke asked: “Is our success in treating the Chinese problem and the Negro problem so notorious that we must attempt to repeat it on a magnified scale eight thousand miles away?” See Hudson, W. S., Nationalism and Religion in America (New York, 1970), p. 122.Google Scholar

22. Rauschenbuseh, Walter, “The Present and the Future”, Rochester Post Express, 11 25, 1849.Google Scholar

23. A portion of Van Dyke's sermon is printed in Hudson, , Nationalism and Religion in America, pp. 120–123.Google Scholar

24. With clerical opinion leadership divided, both camps could make plausible claims to pious justification. In such a situation, majority opinion among opinion leaders to not of decisive importance.

25. Rauschenbusch, op. cit., note 22 above.

26. May, , American Imperialism, p. 221Google Scholar. But see Ira Brown, V., Lyman Abbott, Christian Evolutionist (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), pp. 171–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also discussion in May of the parallel disillusionment of British liberals a a result of the Boer War.

27. Economic expansionism, with an insistence, upon an “open door” policy, was quite another matter.