¹ Hopkins, C. Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865–1915 (New Haven: Yale University, 1940)Google Scholar; Miller, Robert Moats, American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1919–1939 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1958).Google Scholar

² Fine, Sidney, Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1956).Google Scholar Especially noteworthy are the selections in Handy, Robert T., ed., The Social Gospel in America (New York: Oxford University, 1966).Google Scholar

³ May, Henry F., Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York: Harper & Row, 1949).Google Scholar

⁴ Dombrowski, James, The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America (New York: Columbia University, 1936)Google Scholar; Handy, Robert T., “Christianity and Socialism in America, 1900–1920,” CH 21 (1952) 39–54Google Scholar; Quint, Howard H., The Forging of American Socialism (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1953)Google Scholar; Frederick, Peter, Knights of the Golden Rule (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1976)Google Scholar; and Hughley, J. Neal, Trends in Protestant Social Idealism (New York: King's Crown, 1948).Google Scholar

⁵ Carter, Paul A., The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1954)Google Scholar; Meyer, Donald B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941 (Berkeley: University of California, 1960).Google Scholar

⁶ What Sydney Ahlstrom observed in 1967 remains true today: “a history of the theology (or theologies) of either the Social Gospel per se or of the larger movement of social Christianity from 1890 to 1929 is yet to be written” (Theology in America [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967] 76 n. 60).Google ScholarPubMed

⁷ A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917) 1.Google ScholarPubMed

⁸ One thinks, e.g., of Josiah Strong, Lyman Abbott, Charles Sheldon, and Richard T. Ely for the early period and of Sherwood Eddy, Kirby Page, F. Ernest Johnson, and Harry F. Ward for the later period.

⁹ The best general survey of social gospel religious thought is still that of Hopkins; it should be supplemented, however, with the more detailed profiles in Cauthen, Kenneth, The Impact of American Religious Liberalism (New York: Harper & Row, 1962)Google Scholar; Battenhouse, Paul, “Theology in the Social Gospel, 1919–1946” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1950)Google Scholar; and Durfee, Harold Allen, “The Theologies of the American Social Gospel” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1951).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Dorn, Jacob Henry, Washington Gladden (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1966)Google Scholar; Bodein, Vernon Parker, The Social Gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch and Its Relation to Religious Education (New Haven: Yale University, 1944); and to the relevant chapters in Cauthen.Google Scholar

¹¹ These themes, including their relationship to the social gospel, are explored in: Buckham, John Wright, Progressive Religious Thought in America (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1919)Google Scholar; Foster, Frank Hugh, The Modern Movement in American Theology (New York: Revell, 1939)Google Scholar; Williams, Daniel Day, The Andover Liberals (New York: King's Crown, 1941)Google Scholar; and Hutchison, William R., The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1976). Hutchison, however, also emphasizes the impact of German liberalism on social gospel thought (122–32). The influence of European social romanticism has been explored by Peter Frederick.Google Scholar

¹² Cauthen, Impact, 87.

¹³ Ahlstrom, Theology in America, 77.

¹⁴ Dombrowski, Early Days, 14.

¹⁵ Mead, Sidney, The Lively Experiment (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 183.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Theology for the Social Gospel, 19–22; Christianizing the Social Order (New York: Macmillan, 1912), 93.Google Scholar

¹⁷ One might contrast, for example, George Gordon's view of industrialism to the social gospel's view. For Gordon, modern industry “is set in the moral order of the world; it is set for the help of man. It is one vast expression of the instinctive reason of the race; it is one of the most impressive witnesses to the greatness of mankind” (Through Man to God [Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906] 206–7). William Hutchison estimates that one third of the theological liberals between 1875 and 1915 “took no discernible part in the Social Gospel” (p. 165).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Williams, Andover Liberals, 49.

¹⁹ The shadow of Horace Bushnell looms large in discussions of the origins of the social gospel. For a perceptive evaluation of Bushnell's theological presuppositions and the practical implications of his thought, see now Smith, David L., Symbolism and Growth: The Religious Thought of Horace Bushnell (Chico, CA: American Academy of Religion, 1981).Google Scholar

²⁰ Modernist Impulse, 145–47.

²¹ ”The Social Gospel and the Liberal Theology,” Keryx 22 (1931) 12–13. I am indebted to Jon Diefenthaler for directing my attention to this article.Google Scholar

²² Durfee, “Theologies of the American Social Gospel,” 193–94.

²³ King believed that “in the realm of economics, while many still cannot see that a new day has dawned, the multitude of experiments in the industries, all seeking a larger measure of justice for the working man … bear witness to the working sense of justice that may be in a positive way revolutionary” (A New Mind for the New Age [New York: Revell, 1920] 174).Google Scholar King was president of Oberlin College from 1902 to 1927. For an early synthesis of theology and social ethics from a social gospel viewpoint, see his Theology and the Social Consciousness (New York: Macmillan, 1907).Google Scholar

²⁴ According to Walter Marshall Horton, who studied under Lyman at Union Theological Seminary, “a social gospel with a personal foreground and an eternal background: that might hit off briefly the conception of life's goal to which Lyman has adhered throughout his career.” Horton, “Eugene W. Lyman: Liberal Christian Thinker,” in Liberal Theology: An Appraisal (Roberts, David E. and Dusen, Henry Pitney Van, eds.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942) 33.Google Scholar For Lyman's social views, see “The Ethics of the Wages and Profit System,” JRE 31 (1920) 93–108.Google Scholar

²⁵ According to Brown, “this movement toward a social application of the gospel is world-wide. Wherever you go you will find that Christians are aroused to the social need and are beginning to turn their convictions into actions” (Is Christianity Practicable? [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916] 150).Google Scholar Brown was professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1898 to 1936 and an active member of the Federal Council of Churches. His major theological contribution was Christian Theology in Outline (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906). For his influence on Washington Gladden, see Handy, Social Gospel in America, 154–69.Google Scholar

²⁶ Rail was professor of theology at Garrett Biblical Institute from 1915 to 1945 and a long-standing member of The Methodist Federation for Social Service, an important social gospel organization. For a statement of his social views, see The Coming Kingdom (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1924).Google Scholar His mature theological views were presented in Christianity: An Inquiry into Its Nature and Truth (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940).Google Scholar

²⁷ McConnell was a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1912 to 1944, president of the Federal Council of Churches from 1928 to 1932, and president of The Methodist Federation for Social Service from 1912 to 1943 and 1948 to 1953. He was one of the truly outstanding social liberals of the interwar period. See the tribute to him by various associates in Rail, Harris Franklin, ed., Religion and Public Affairs (New York: Macmillan, 1937).Google Scholar

²⁸ Macintosh was professor of theology at Yale from 1916 to 1948. An early statement of his unique theological position is Theology as an Empirical Science (New York: Macmillan, 1927).Google Scholar His defense of social Christianity may be found in Social Religion (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939). The latter book was dedicated to Jerome Davis, “insurgent prophet of social religion.”Google Scholar

²⁹ McGiffert was president of Union Theological Seminary from 1917 to 1926. A Historian of Christian theology rather than a theologian, McGiffert helped to give Union its social orientation in the 1920s. For his attitude toward the social gospel, both critical and affirmative, see his addresses “Personal Religion and Social Ethics,” “The Ministry of Reconciliation,” and “The Kingdom of God” in Christianity as History and Faith (McGiffert, A. C. Jr, ed.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934) 245–72, 298–311.Google Scholar

³⁰ Theology for the Social Gospel, 221.

³¹ Christianizing the Social Order, 121.

³² (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1927).

³³ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 103.

³⁴ Theology and Human Problems (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910) 81.Google Scholar

³⁵ “Theology and the Historical Method,” Methodist Review 92 (1910) 203, 207.Google Scholar

³⁶ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 219.

³⁷ New Mind for the New Age, 80–81.

³⁸ Theology and Human Problems, 183.

³⁹ “The Kingdom of God and History,” in Wood, H. G., et al., eds., The Kingdom of God and History (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1938) 75–104.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid., 78–80.

⁴¹ “Theology and the Historical Method,” 208.

⁴² Working Faith (New York: Abingdon, 1914) 23, 53, 64.Google ScholarPubMed

⁴³ Religion of a Mature Mind (Chicago: Revell, 1902) 146–47.Google ScholarPubMed

⁴⁴ Is Christianity Practicable?, 57.

⁴⁵ This comment does not mean that Lotze's impact on the theology of the social gospel should be viewed in isolation from other philosophical and theological currents of the late nineteenth century. Even Henry Churchill King and Borden Parker Bowne, the most avid Lotzeans in America, were not uncritical in their appropriation of Lotze. Nevertheless, most of the younger liberal scholars of this period have acknowledged their interest in Lotze. See Hutchison, Modernist Impulse, 122–27, and the autobiographical references in Ferm, Vergilius, ed., Contemporary American Theology (2 vols.; New York: Round Table, 1933). Lotze's influence was more “pervasive” in character than definitive, complementing the interest of the younger liberals in German theology and in such diverse philosophical systems as those of Henri Bergson, Samuel Alexander, and William James.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ “Lotze's Influence on Theology,” New World 6 (1895) 401.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Paul Grimley Kuntz, “Introduction” in Santayana, George, Lotze's System of Philosophy (Kuntz, Paul Grimley, ed.; Bloomington: Indiana University, 1971) 62.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ “The influence and position of Lotze is interesting and curious. He is no longer read at all; but in America early in the present century, he was carefully studied” (Thayer, H. S., Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism [New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968] 63).Google Scholar For Lotze's influence on James's thought, see Kraushaar, Otto F., “Lotze's Influence on the Pragmatism of William James,” JHI 1 (1940) 439–58.Google Scholar For his influence on John Dewey, see White's, Morton G. chapter “Lotze and Instrumental Logic” in The Origins of Dewey's Instrumentalism (New York: Columbia University, 1943) 134–48.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Oiitlines of the Philosophy of Religion (Ladd, G. T., ed.; London: Dickinson, 1887) 72.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ibid., 111.

⁵¹ Ladd, “Lotze's Influence,” 420.

⁵² See Santayana, Lotze's System of Philosophy, and Moore, Vida F., The Ethical Aspects of Lotze's Metaphysics (Cornell Studies in Philosophy 4; New York: Macmillan, 1901).Google Scholar

⁵³ Ritschl's stress on the importance of value judgments in epistemology was dependent on Lotze's logic, although Ritschl's attitudes towards metaphysics and the natural world were closer in spirit to Kant than to Lotze. See also Lyman, Eugene, “Ritschl's Theory of Value-Judgements,” JR 5 (1925) 500–518.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ According to Ralph Barton Perry, “waiving the fundamental issue between pluralism and monism, there were many doctrinal bonds [between James and Lotze].… Of even greater importance was Lotze's notion that worth of validity is a radical principle, irreducible to existence; that, in fact, things are what they are worth. Here are intimations of many ideas dear to James's mind” (The Thought and Character of William James [Boston: Little, Brown, 1935] 1. 586–87).Google ScholarPubMed

⁵⁵ Lyman, “Christian Theology and a Spiritualistic Philosophy,” in Ferm, Contemporary American Theology, 2. 106–18.

⁵⁶ Theology and Human Problems, 134.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 187 (italics added).

⁵⁸ “We have found much help in the changed conception of natural law which is appearing in many quarters; we have seen the advantage of substituting the conception of the growing universe for the thought that it is static” (Ibid., 161).

⁵⁹ “ln the cosmic life Lotze supposes a continuous consciousness of its own law and a continual direction of action in conformity with it; and this self-consciousness and personality in the world give its theoretic unity the added note of a projected and personal unity” (Santayana, Lotze's System of Philosophy, 216).

⁶⁰ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 207–8.

⁶¹ Theology as an Empirical Science, 188–89.

⁶² Theology and the Social Consciousness, 217.

⁶³ Is God Limited? (New York: Abingdon, 1924) 88.Google ScholarPubMed

⁶⁴ The God of the New Age (Boston: Pilgrim, 1918) 8.Google ScholarPubMed

⁶⁵ “Theology and the Historical Method,” 203.

⁶⁶ Is Christianity Practicable? 81–82.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 82.

⁶⁸ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 216.

⁶⁹ Theism (New York: American Book, 1887), 177.Google ScholarPubMed

⁷⁰ Outlines, 47.

⁷¹ Theology and Human Problems, 20, 148–49.

⁷² Theology as an Empirical Science, 179–80.

⁷³ The Increase of Faith (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1912) 72–73.Google ScholarPubMed

⁷⁴ Theology and Human Problems, 187.

⁷⁵ Christian Theology in Outline, 103.

⁷⁶ Christianity, 321.

⁷⁷ Theology as an Empirical Science, 180.

⁷⁸ Christian Theology in Outline, 214.

⁷⁹ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 215.

⁸⁰ The God of the New Age, 13; Theology and Human Problems, 21.

⁸¹ Christian Theology in Outline, 213.

⁸² Theology for the Social Gospel, 233, 238.

⁸³ Theology and Human Problems, 184.

⁸⁴ Is God Limited?, 292.

⁸⁵ Christianity, 110.

⁸⁶ Ibid., 299.

⁸⁷ Ibid., 312.

⁸⁸ “My Idea of God,” Woman's Home Companion (May 1926) 31, 154.

⁸⁹ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 157.

⁹⁰ Christianity as History and Faith, 173.

⁹¹ Is God Limited?, 296–97.

⁹² Christian Theology in Outline, 323.

⁹³ H. Richard Niebuhr's famous dictum that “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministration of a Christ without a cross” (The Kingdom of God in America [New York: Harper & Row, 1937] 193–94)Google Scholar is often interpreted as a criticism of the social gospel, although the context of the statement is actually ambiguous. Niebuhr made a judicious appraisal of the social gospel in “The Attack Upon the Social Gospel,” Religion in Life 5 (1936) 176–81Google Scholar, reprinted in White, Ronald C. Jr and Hopkins, C. Howard, eds., The Social Gospel (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1976).Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Theology and Human Problems, 196.

⁹⁵ Is Christianity Practicable?, 83.

⁹⁶ A Working Faith, 144.

⁹⁷ Is God Limited?, 289.

⁹⁸ Theology as an Empirical Science, 131.

⁹⁹ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 221.

¹⁰⁰ Christian Theology in Outline, 325.

¹⁰¹ Is God Limited?, 285–86.

¹⁰² Christianity as History and Faith, 173.

¹⁰³ Theology and Human Problems, 197–98; Theology and the Social Consciousness, 221; and Gladden, Washington, Present-Day Theology (Columbus: McClelland, 1913) 168–69.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ The Christian Doctrine of Salvation (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905) 442–43.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Christian Theology in Outline, 324.

¹⁰⁶ Theology for the Social Gospel, 179.

¹⁰⁷ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 222.

¹⁰⁸ Theology and Human Problems, 78–79.

¹⁰⁹ “Theology and the Historical Method,” 209–10.

¹¹⁰ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 87.

¹¹¹ A Social Theory of Religious Education (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917) 73.Google Scholar

¹¹² “The Experience of God in the Social Order,” Experience, The Annual College of Preachers (New York: General Conference Commission on Courses of Study of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1935) 57–61.Google ScholarPubMed

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¹¹⁴ Theology and the Social Consciousness, 48–49.

¹¹⁵ Christianizing the Social Order, 118.

¹¹⁶ “Two Commandments in One,” Christian Century Pulpit 5 (1934) 269.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Christianizing the Social Order, 105.

¹¹⁸ Ibid., 107.