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| Vernon Johns 6 White Social GospelPART III. LIBERALISM IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHTCHAPTER 6. WHITE SOCIAL GOSPEL Religious LiberalismThe tradition of theological liberalism is a long one (Luker 1991:12-14 &244). Originating in the American Missionary Association, it was organizedas a protest against cooperation with slaveholders in the missions and helpedin relief in the South. After the war, theological liberals was the focusof much of the northern missionary effort in the education of postwar freedmen.It may have been the most important vehicle of the social gospel prior tothe organization of the Federal Council of Churches in 1909. One of theoutstanding ministers in this tradition was Henry Ward Beecher. Other keyevangelical neoabolitionist spokesmen were Washington Gladden, Amory Bradford,Charles Cuthbert Hall (president of Union Theological Seminary), and HenryChurchill King. They were all leaders of the American Missionary Associationand appealed to theological personalism for values in race relations.Social Gospel: The Progressive Spirit in ReligionThe Social Gospel stressed that religious people in the church should beinvolved in practical affairs to improve both the larger society and thelives of individuals. The Social Gospel (Ahlstrom:785-786) was a submovementwithin the larger tradition of religious liberalism. And as progressives,they wanted America's unregulated industrialism to be modified by Christianfaith.The last two decades of the 19th century the movement deepened its intellectualfoundations, broadened its focus, vastly increased its following, and beganto make a positive impact in some theological schools and on the prevailingopinions of churchgoing America. Some of the thinkers in this tradition wereWashington Gladden (1836- 1918), Francis Greenwood Peabody (1847-1936), andJosiah Strong (1847-1916) as well as the social scientists Richard T. Ely(1854- 1943) and Albion W. Small (1854-1926).Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) of Rochester Seminary probably best representedthe Social Gospel movement (Ahlstrom 1972:801). He was well known as a SocialGospel leader even before the century's turn, but in 1907 he published hisChristianity and the Social Crisis. He also maintained that people must gaincontrol over social forces.PersonalismPersonalism (Barnard 1969:115&117) built on the notion that the personalexperience of Christians was the basis for religious experience. They oftentook Jesus Christ as the exemplar of this. The personalists saw Jesus Christ"as the supreme person of history." The turn toward social redemption wasgraphically illustrated in the new, social purpose of organizations and practiceswhich had earlier served as agencies of the old evangelicalism. After 1900,the YMCA and the YWCA, for example, emphasized social service. They initiateda host of activities designed to aid in establishing the Kingdom of God onearth.The founder of personalism was the Boston Personalist, Borden Parker Bowne,and his successors, Edgar Sheffield Brightman and his disciple L. HaroldDeWolf. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Lischer 1995:54,57-58) studied personalismunder Brightman at Boston University. Popular nineteenth-century preacherslike Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks promoted the social relevanceof Christianity by brilliantly bringing to life the personality of Jesusand showing how his love ethic could be applied to personal and socialrelationships. In liberal thought Jesus accomplishes God's will by exercisingthe moral influence of his person on society. The Social Gospel had maintainedan evangelical approach to God and Christ, but Boston Personalism stressedthat God is the ideal personality.The personalists (Lischer 1995:58-59) answered Darwinian evolutionism andmodern society "by locating moral value exclusively in human personality.The essential human being was not subject to the laws and vicissitudes ofnature. The human being occupied a privileged realm of spirit that scientificnaturalism could not touch."Henry Churchill KingOne of the country's foremost Personalist was Henry Churchill King (b. 1858).He was the president of Oberlin College and author of a half-dozen treatiseson rational living. When President King (Mayer 1993:21) had a cold he toldthe students that its cause was his failure to live rationally. He foundit possible to equate evolution with the biblical version of creation (Ashmore1989; Foster 1969).King was a graduate of Oberlin from both college and seminary, was thoroughlyknown by his colleagues, and possessed their entire confidence. He had beena professor in the college since 1884, and had latterly occupied the chairof philosophy . . .He had a year at Harvard where he took the degree of A.M."As Oberlin entered the twentieth century, the old evangelical faith, withits emphasis on individual salvation and personal moral codes, was givingway to a new faith combining reverence for the worth of the individual withsocial redemption. . . . As a formal doctrine, it was primarily the workof Henry Churchill King" (Barnard 1969:114).The change from the old evangelical system to the new system proceeded smoothly.When President Fairchild (Foster 1969:172) resigned the professorship oftheology in 1897, his place was filled by the appointment of Henry ChurchillKing, under whom the transition was effected quietly and without friction.At the time of King's accession to the theological chair, Oberlin was ripefor the change. Professor Ballantine, under the pressure of the new electivesystem, had been compelled to give fresh attention to the higher criticismof the Old Testament, and had gradually yielded to its arguments. ProfessorBosworth had succeeded to the New Testament chair and had also come underthe influence of the new movement in theology. So there were no members ofthe faculty likely to resist vigorously a modernization of the theology ofthe school (Foster 1939 reprinted 1969: 173).In 1901 Henry King (Foster 1969: 173) published Reconstruction in Theology.His aim was not to create a great and final theological system, but "to makereal to his own generation the great abiding truths of Christianity." Kingbelieve that all reality, human and divine, must be interpreted in personalterms (Luker 1991:249).Foster (Foster 1969: 185) refers to King as a great theologian, saying thatKing was the first in the New England succession to put the principle oflove, presented in a new phrasing as "reverence for personality," intoapplication to well-nigh the whole range of theology.King (Foster 1969:178) defined religion itself as personal. "The God withwhom we come into personal relation is not the God of mere religious fancyor mystical experience, nor the God of philosophical speculation, but theGod revealed concretely, unmistakably, in the ethical and spiritual personalityof Jesus Christ. He alone is the supreme and religiously adequate revelationof God." He might have accomplished much more in theology but shortly afterthe publication of Theology and the Social Consciousness in 1902, he waselected President of Oberlin College (Foster 1969:185).Oberlin impressed many national leaders of the reform movement with the strengthof its commitment to social Christianity. Walter Rauschenbusch and JosiahStrong sent their children to the College (Barnard 1969:121-122).In the early twentieth century the College sponsored the propagation of socialgospel tenets in other ways. A steady stream of speakers from outside enlightenedundergraduates. Washington Gladden, an old favorite, made almost regularlecture appearances, always stressing social responsibility and reform. Otherspeakers included Walter Rauschenbusch, Graham Taylor, Florence Kelly, LincolnSteffens, Shailer Mathews, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Charles M. Sheldon, CharlesA. Beard, Joseph W. Folk, Robert M. La Follette, and socialist author JackLondon.Until 1917 King's efforts to hold fast to traditional principles weresubstantially successful (Barnard 1969:110&123). The disillusionmentcreated by the horrors of World War I disclosed some of the weaknesses inthe religious education and genteel culture at Oberlin as elsewhere. Prewarleaders, such as King, were never comfortable in the postwar world. The OberlinSocialism Discussion Club was founded in 1915 by Herbert A. Miller, professorof sociology. Winifred Rauschenbusch, daughter of Walter, was its firstpresident. The club was affiliated with the Intercollegiate Socialist Societyand brought such socialist writers and lecturers as John Spargo and RosePastor Stokes to Oberlin to address large audiences.Harry Emerson FosdickAccording to the great Reinhold Niebuhr, in his time Harry Emerson Fosdickbecame the most celebrated preacher of his day. In 1895 as an eighteen-year-oldwho possessed a near-photographic memory, he went to Hamilton, New York toattend Colgate University, a small Baptist school (Miller 1985:29&35).Like black theologian Howard Thurman, he was influenced by the Quaker mystic,Rufus Jones, and became a member in the Wider Quaker Fellowship (Miller1985:37&52). Rufus Jones must be seen as one of the romantic absoluteidealists. Fosdick read his 1904 Social Law in the Spiritual World and itwas a memorable event for him. The authority of personal experience was forFosdick forever to be the primary authority. He also liked the personalisticidealism of the Methodist theologian, Borden Parker Bowne, whose 1908 volumePersonalism became virtually the "party line" of American Methodism as wellas the work of William James in his 1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience.At Colgate he was greatly influenced by the theological liberal William NewtonClarke (Miller 1985:38&40). Clarke published An Outline of ChristianTheology in 1898. It became the Bible of evangelical liberalism. Anotherinfluence was John Fiske, whose writings tamed the idea of evolution by combiningit with an optimistic theism.In 1901 Fosdick went to New York City to attend Union Theological Seminary.The president, Charles Cuthbert Hall, virtually adopted Fosdick (Miller1985:41,43, 88&100). Fosdick served as pastor in Montclair, New Jerseyfor some fifteen years. During this time he published six books that establishedhis reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. His sales ran into the millions.His preaching seemed to many reminiscent of Henry Ward Beecher and PhillipsBrooks in their days of glory.And then the great evolutionary crisis arose. The fundamentalists in thePresbyterian camp included William Jennings Bryan, J. Gresham Machen, thepopular revivalist William A. (Billy) Sunday; the wealthy, pious merchantJohn Wanamaker and pulpit giants Clarence Edward Macartney in Philadelphiaand Mark A. Matthews in Seattle (Miller 1985:112).Events in 1922 thrust Fosdick into the center of the controversy. The controversystarted when Fosdick published a rebuttal to Bryan's article "God and Evolution"that appeared in the New York Times. He also preached the sermon "Shall theFundamentalists Win?" and the battle was on. The liberals supporting Fosdickincluded his friend Henry Sloane Coffin and William P. Merrill, George A.Buttrick, Robert Hastings Nichols, John A. MacCallum, Murray Shipley Howland,Canada's Richard Roberts, and Scotland's John Kelman, among others (Miller1985:115&123).The showdown was brought forth by the fundamentalists over the issue ofevolution. In 1925 Fosdick was forced from the pulpit of New York's FirstPresbyterian Church because he refused to assent to the Presbyterian creedalrequirement.In 1926 he gave his first sermon as pastor of the Park Avenue Baptist Church.In 1927 the cornerstone for Riverside Church was laid with a flourish, theceremonies beginning at Union Seminary and ending at the site (Miller 1985:208).It was not until 1931 that the Riverside Church was dedicated.The Social Gospel and the University of ChicagoAfter John D. Rockefeller's princely contribution to the University of Chicago,its Divinity School (Baptist) quickly became a great Midwestern center ofliberalism, around which Congregational, Disciples, and Unitarian facultieswere also gathered. Its dynamic and accomplished faculty made it possiblefor the school to remain throughout the first third of the twentieth centuryas the country's most powerful center of Protestant liberalism. Henry NelsonWieman (b. 1884) was perhaps the dominant figure at Chicago from 1927 to1947. Edward Scribner Ames, chairman of the Chicago philosophy departmentand minister to the University Disciples Church, became the country's mostwidely read psychologist of religion. Shirley Jackson Case carried positivisticmethods into scholarship on the New Testament and the early church (Ahlstrom1972: 775-776,906). Chicago was famed as an institute of modernism. Fromthe surrounding seminaries came a long line of distinguished parish ministers.The movement lasted for more than two long generations. For a brief time,one of these distinguished ministers was Vernon Johns.The University of Chicago was a very progressive school. From the end ofWorld War I until the middle 1930s, under the leadership of Robert E. Parkand others, the University of Chicago's department of sociology dominatedthe field (Bracey et. al. 1971:5). One of Park's major interests was in racerelations, and it was the University of Chicago that produced those fivedistinguished students of American blacks -- Charles S. Johnson, E. FranklinFrazier, Bertram W. Doyle, St. Clair Drake, and Horace Cayton. All of thesemen, except Drake, were students of Park.Park, after a decade in journalism, had pursued graduate training and takenhis Ph.D. at Heidelberg in 1904. He came to know Booker T. Washington, principalof Tuskegee Institute in Alabama (Bracey et. al. 1971:5). At Washington'sinvitation, Park made his headquarters at Tuskegee, spending several yearsinvestigating the race problem in the South. In 1914, at the age of fifty,Park joined Albion Small and W. I. Thomas in the Department of Sociologyat the University of Chicago. As a leading figure in the most influentialsociology department in the nation, Park enjoyed an unusual opportunity toadvance the sociological study of the black man in America. While sociologistslike E. a. Ross of the University of Wisconsin were still upholding Anglo-Saxonpurity and inveighing against blacks or Orientals, Park demanded that sociologycast off bias and emotional agitation and study race relations in variedsocietal contexts.Park (Bracey et. al. 1971:6) was a mild reformist. He was the first presidentof the Chicago Urban League. His research orientation included a strong interestin social problems. Much of the work of the Chicago school was directed towardstudying the subject of urban social disorganization and urban pathology.Conservative Social Gospel in Montgomery: Edgar Gardner MurphyEdgar Gardner Murphy developed a conservative version of the social gospelfit for the more restrictive society of the South. Born in 1869 in Arkansashis father abandoned the family when Edgar was only five years old. The familymoved to San Antonio, Texas, where Murphy came under the influence of theReverend Walter Richardson, rector of the local Episcopal Church.Murphy graduated from the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee,in 1889. At the university he was influenced by William Porcher DuBose, whoembodied the university's lingering commitment to the values of the Old South.Then he studied for a year at New York's General Theological Seminary (Luker1984:289 and Luker 1991:282).He returned to San Antonio, Texas and served as assistant to the ReverendCharles Richardson. Later he took charge of Christ Church in the border townof Laredo, Texas. In 1893 he took a post with St. Paul's Episcopal Churchin Chillicothe, Ohio. While there he published two books in 1897. These werethe start of his conservative social gospel. It was a theology he had largelylearned from William Porcher DuBose and James Warley Miles (Luker 1984:290-294).In 1898 he accepted a call to St. John's Episcopal Church in Montgomery,Alabama, where he was drawn ever more deeply into a social ministry (Luker1984: 311&316-317). When he arrived in Montgomery, he found that theEpiscopal Church had no ministry to the black community. In 1899 he invitedinterested blacks to meet with him at St. John's Church to consider theorganization of a black congregation. He helped established the Church ofthe Good Shepherd as a black Episcopal congregation.Within a year, Murphy gathered a group of Montgomery's leading white citizensto plan a forum to coordinate the efforts of the more "liberal" forces inSouthern race relations (Luker 1984:318). In 1900 this "Southern Societyfor the Promotion of the Study of Race Conditions and Problems in the South"called its first annual conference on race relations to meet in Montgomery.He and other members of the organization were invited to the Tuskegee Institutefor the dedication of the school's new trade school building. There he metBooker T. Washington and addressed the students and faculty.In 1901 he resigned his position at St. John's church in order to devotehimself more completely to social improvements (Luker 1984:352). He becameExecutive Secretary of the Southern Education Board. Booker T. Washingtonwas one of the board's field agents. The board organized a propaganda campaignto win increased state and local support of public schools throughout theSouth. He resigned from the ministry in 1903.In 1909 he published The Basis of Ascendancy in which he tried to establishhimself as a new John C. Calhoun to the South but a Calhoun who was a littlekinder on race relations (Luker 1984:370-371). He wrote that the church andreligion had to apply to today's society, but the book itself was largelyan accommodationist tract. It was a Southern "liberal" social gospel, butThis means that it largely accepted white dominance over the blacks. He rejectedboth social equality and universal manhood suffrage. He talked of a new Southof industrial hope, where blacks would find opportunity to work, but theraces would develop separately.He died in 1913 in New York City. Just how weak "liberalism" was at thistime can be seen in the words of praise for Murphy by liberals of the time(Luker 1991:282). None of the theologians of race relations was more widelyrespected than Murphy. Lyman Abbott, Washington Gladden, Thomas WentworthHigginson, Francis Greenwood Peabody, and Josiah Strong praised his "brave"and "statesman-like" work in race relations. Black conservatives Robert RussaMoton and Booker T. Washington, Southern white moderate Willis Duke Weatherford,and Northern white liberal Mary White Ovington all paid him tribute. He wasa conservative separatist that made him the era's foremost spokesman fora genteel American racism. Returnto Main Page Table of Contents Return to Home Page |
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