Ecclesiastical Politics and the Founding of the Federal Council of Churches

1974 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-365
Author(s):  
John Abernathy Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Service ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
National Council ◽  
American Christianity ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Influential Book ◽  
Federal Council Of Churches

In an influential book of thirty years ago, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865–1915, Charles Howard Hopkins interpreted the founding in 1908 of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the forerunner of the present National Council, as a stage in the flowering of the social gospel in American Christianity. His interpretation was soon confirmed by John Alexander Hutchison. In We Are Not Divided, a study of the pronouncements of the Federal Council, Hutchison wrote that the Federal Council was born of the marriage between “the idea of social service and the idea of interdenominational cooperation”. By “the idea of interdenominational cooperation”, however, Hutchison meant little more than what Hopkins had already defined as the impulse for social Christianity, and there the matter has rested for subsequent historians, including two former secretaries of the Federal Council.

The Mission to China

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-33
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
The Relationship

American Protestantism determined to a large extent the nature of the mission errand to China, especially in the Chinese Protestant elite’s understanding of social Christianity. American Protestantism, however, suffered from certain weaknesses in its own understanding of the relationship between Christianity and society, and this weakness was most evident in the message of the Social Gospel. The Social Gospel aimed to reshape the modern industrial economy, so that it was more humane to workers and more beneficial to society. That message, though, was compromised in its transmission to China by its association with imperialism. Beyond this message of the Social Gospel, American missions were also the early benefactors of the main institutions—colleges and universities, the YMCA and the YWCA—through which the Protestant elite influenced the larger society.

Rich Laymen and Early Social Christianity

1967 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Clyde C. Griffen
Keyword(s):  
Social Gospel ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism

Clergymen led the movement within American Protestantism known as Social Christianity or the Social Gospel. A small minority, primarily in the larger cities, began the shift away from individualistic views of salvation and ethics in the 1870's and 80's. By 1910 they had grown sufficiently in numbers and influence to secure official endorsement by the major denominations of a broad construction of Christian responsibility for the welfare of society.

The Social Gospel and the Failure of Racial Reform, 1877–1898

1977 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph E. Luker
Keyword(s):  
Race Relations ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Walter Rauschenbusch ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

While American Society was coming apart in the 1960s, an impressive array of historians rallied to condemn what Rayford Logan called “the astigmatism of the social gospel” in race relations. Preoccupied by the ills of urban-industrial disorder, they suggested, the prophets of post-Reconstruction social Christianity either ignored or betrayed the Negro and left his fortunes in the hands of a hostile white South. The indictment of the social gospel on this count hinged upon the racism of Josiah Strong, the faithlessness of Lyman Abbott, and the complicity in silence of Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, and the others.

The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915

1941 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 945
Author(s):  
Charles A. Ellwood ◽  
Charles Howard Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Gospel ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism

The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915

1941 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 382
Author(s):  
Henry F. May ◽  
Charles Howard Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Gospel ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism

Assaulting the Citadel

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-143
Author(s):  
John W. Compton
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
National Council ◽  
Religious Support ◽  
Free Enterprise ◽  
Government Aid ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Council Of Churches

This chapter tells the story of how J. Howard Pew and a band of conservative activists attempted to infiltrate the National Council of Churches with the aim of undermining religious support for the welfare state. As with many odd pairings, financial considerations helped bring the parties together. The courtship began when the NCC’s architects hatched the idea of a National Lay Committee—a body of prominent laymen and women that would help the Council keep its finger on the pulse of lay opinion while also boosting the Council’s budget. From Pew’s perspective, the Lay Committee offered a potential backdoor into the citadel of the Social Gospel. The NCC needed money, and he was willing and able to supply it. In return, he asked only that the Council cease issuing pronouncements in favor of government aid to the less fortunate and instead transform itself into a champion of the free-enterprise system. The plan sounded simple enough on paper, yet it ultimately failed to accomplish its principal objective of prompting the NCC to abandon its commitment to a robust social welfare state. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was a group of prominent business leaders, not the alleged communists in the ranks of the clergy, who led the opposition to Pew’s short-lived Lay Committee.

The Background for the Social Gospel in American Protestantism

1936 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice C. Latta
Keyword(s):  
World Wide ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Lewis Mumford ◽  
The Great War

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.

Conservative Social Christianity, the Law, and Personal Morality: Wilbur F. Crafts in Washington

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaines M. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Gospel ◽  
American Religion ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law

In 1895, Wilbur F. Crafts opened on office in Washington, D.C. and proclaimed himself a Christian lobbyist. Over the next quarter century, until his death in 1922, he mobilized churches and individual Christians to pressure Congress on behalf of bills, some he had written, to limit divorce, to control sexuality, and to restrict or prohibit the use of narcotics and alcohol. He also led an unsuccessful campaign for federal censorship of the movies. Crafts deserves more attention than historians of American religion have paid him. His legislative accomplishments render his career important in itself, but an analysis of his theology and lobbying efforts also helps historians better conceptualize social Christianity and the social gospel.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document