theof The Congrega bulletintional Library and Archives

Second Series | VOL. 11 no. 3 | 2015

5 From the Director

6 Redeeming the American Dream: The Gilded Age Gospel Of Social Salvation

17 The Social Gospel and the Legacies of Walter Rauschenbusch, Henry Hugh Proctor, and Georgia Harkness

23 Union Made

28 The Last Puritans: Mainline Protestants and the Power of the Past; Dr. Kenneth Minkema Interviews Peggy Bendroth 1 COVER First Congregational Church, Atlanta, Congregation with Rev. Henry Hugh Proctor

RIGHT Marble sign , Congregational House. Photograph by: Leise Jones Photography

The Bulletin is a journal, published three times a year by the Congregational Library and Archives, covering the history and significance of the Congregational tradition.

To respond to articles in this issue, email us at [email protected].

The Bulletin (ISSN 0010-5821). Copies are sent to all members. Memberships are: $325 sustainer; $200/$150 supporter dual/individual; contributor $80/$50 dual/individual; $25 student. Reprints of this issue are available. Write or call

Congregational Library and Archives, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108;

617-523-0470 ext. 230; or email [email protected]. Printed in the U.S.A.

The Congregational Library and Archives strives to enliven a tradition of care for the world’s future by preserving and interpreting the stories of the past and to serve anyone desiring to learn more about one of the nation’s oldest and most influential religious traditions and has been since its founding in 1853. The Library is located just down from the Massachusetts State House in Congregational

House at 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts. Table of Contents

5 From the Director

6 Redeeming the American Dream: The Gilded Age Gospel Of Social Salvation by Norman Erlendson

17 The Social Gospel and the Legacies of Walter Rauschenbusch, Henry Hugh Proctor, and Georgia Harkness by Christopher Evans

23 Union Made by Heath Carter

28 Minkema Interviews Bendroth The American Congregational Association The Congregational Library and Archives

Board of Directors

Chair Secretary Treasurer Charles Hambrick-Stowe Richard Elliott Stephen Silver

Robert Bachelder Norman Erlendsen Nicholas Iacuzio Frederick Balfour Mark Gabrielson S.C. Campbell Lovett Christopher Bartel Stephen Gray Elizabeth Nordbeck Mary E. Biedron Richard Harter Marjorie Royle Francis J. Bremer James Hopkins Barbara Brown Zikmund

Emeritus Richard H. Taylor Harold Worthley

STAFF

Executive Director Development Assistant Archivist Margaret Bendroth Joanna Albertson-Grove Cristina Prochilo

Library Director Digital Project Associate Librarian Specialist/Webmaster Tom Clark Steven Picazio Robin Duckworth

Director, New England Director of Development Archivist Hidden Histories Cary Hewitt Jessica Steytler James F. Cooper Digital Archivist Sari Mauro

4

Executive Director Margaret Bendroth

FROM THE DIRECTOR

I suppose all of us have heard the which made a profound mark on American society comment at some time: “Thank goodness we’ve and American church life. Congregationalists like “evolved” beyond the sins of the past. Whenever Washington Gladden were central figures in its I see a handicapped ramp on a building or an progress and spread, and the denomination was African-American baseball player, I emphatically profoundly affected by the movement’s soaring agree, and I feel genuine gratitude for all those ideals and deeply biblical vision. We can say that who struggled to make it so. But I am also wary of this is one more area where Congregationalists self-congratulation. We are not looking down from made an impact far beyond their modest numbers. a high rung on some moral ladder. We are not the I hope that this issue of the Bulletin, bringing first to spot social evil and inequality. you both cutting-edge scholarship and food for thought, inspires you as well. This issue of the Bulletin focuses on the Social Gospel, a movement now over a century old,

5 REDEEMING THE AMERICAN DREAM: The Gilded Age Gospel of Social Salvation

Norman Erlendson

James Truslow Adams coined the phrase tough times but has grown stronger as it continues “American Dream” in the 1930s. He defined the to inspire reform movements dedicated to removing Dream as “the vision of a better, deeper, richer life unjust restrictions that deny the promise of a better, for every individual, regardless of the position in richer life to all citizens regardless of religion, race or society which he or she may occupy by the accident of gender. birth. It has been a dream of a chance to rise in the economic scale… unhampered by unjust restrictions… The American Dream has been the and the hope of bettering the physical conditions inspiration and rallying cry of protesters and social of living, and of lessening the toil and anxieties of reformers throughout our history. The Social daily life.” 1 Adams’s catchphrase was new, but the Gospel movement of the late 19th century was an idea was not. The concept of an American Dream attempt to preserve the promise of the American was seized upon by other writers and has been Dream for “the least of those who lived among traced back to the Puritan dream of making New us” during America’s Gilded Age. Its leaders saw a England “a city upon a hill” and to the Preamble baser metal beneath the nation’s glittering surface. to the Constitution.2 Adams saw the Dream as They shined a light on the grim faces of millions of waxing and waning at different times in American working poor for whom the American Dream was history. He thought it was in eclipse during the truly an impossible dream. Great Depression. But Adams was confident that GROWING PAINS the Dream would eventually reemerge stronger The Social Gospel movement began as a than ever and advance toward greater realization for Christian response to the political and economic more citizens. The Dream not only survived those

6 forces that drastically transformed America in with photographs that became the basis of a the decades between 1860 and 1900. This was an bestselling book, How the Other Half Lives, (1890). era that saw the rise of big business and big cities. Riis was the first to expose the nation to the Those who lived through it witnessed America plight of its working poor. It was a revelation to undergo the greatest changes in its history. In a the Better-Off-Half of American society, which mere 40 years, the America that was a nation of up to that point had largely turned a blind eye to small towns and small farms became the world’s the slum-dwellers who were on their very door greatest industrial power. The nation’s population step. Middle class Americans who lived together doubled, its Gross National Product quadrupled in their own homogeneous neighborhoods, were and the size of its cities exploded. The percentage shocked and shamed into action “by intrepid men of people living in cities increased from 25% to and women who plunge for a time into the life of 40%. Between 1850 and 1900 New York grew from the lower classes and return to write books about 500,000 to 3.5 million, Philadelphia from 120,000 this unknown race that lives in the next block”.4 to 1.3 million, and Chicago went from a mere 30,000 to become America’s second largest city Washington Gladden (1836-1918) and with 1.7 million residents. By 1895 the American Walter Rauschenbucsh (1861-1918) were among economy was dominated by giant industrial the first to recognize the desperate plight of corporations that only came into being after a rapidly growing underclass of wage earning the Civil War. They were run by moguls whose industrial workers. Gladden was the pioneer personal fortunes approached the billion dollar who wrote Working Men and Their Employers mark, and whose lifestyles rivaled or exceeded in 1876. Thirty years later Rauschenbusch wrote, those of the fabled royal families of old Europe. Christianity and the Social Crisis. It was the single These titans of American Industry and Finance most influential book produced by the Social lived in the spotlight of the press, and were Gospel movement. It was the product of ten years regarded as national heroes. But their fortunes of ministering to the poor in the Hell’s Kitchen were made possible by the millions of men, section of New York City, followed by ten years of women and children whom they employed to work theological reflection on the social implications in their mines and factories 12 to 14 hour days, of Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God. six or seven days a week for a mere 3 to 5 dollars He came to believe that America was facing its per week. “Profits were enormous against meager greatest social crisis. He argued persuasively that wages—never before have the rich been so rich the well-being of laboring families and democracy and the poor so poor—an imbalance that helped 1 itself were put at risk by the new industrial order percent of the population by 1890 to own as much as the remaining 99 percent put together.”3 The Never before have the rich been crushing poverty, the appalling living conditions, so rich and the poor so poor and miseries associated with life in squalid, disease-ridden tenements were all documented by Jacob Riis in a series of public lectures illustrated “ ”

7 Most disturbing to them was the powerlessness of workers and their realization that the traditional American value of honest, hard work leading to a better, richer life could no longer be taken for granted as it had been in previous generations.

THE WAY WE ONCE WERE The celebration of free labor and the American work ethic was a popular theme in early America. In an 1855 address Henry Ward Beecher said with pride, “Among us, and from the beginning work has been honorable. It has been Standoff with strikers. honorable to dig, to hew, to build, to reap, to wield the hammer at the forge, and the saw at the bench. because it denied them a living wage and the It has been honorable because our people have opportunity for social advancement. been taught that each man is set to make the most of himself. The crown for every victory gained in A REDEMPTIVE VISION FOR SOCIETY a struggle of skill or industry over matter is placed The Social Gospel reformers were upon the soul; and thus among a free people motivated to action by a redemptive vision for industry becomes education. Go where you will a America. The singular contribution of the Social Yankee is a working creature. He is the honeybee Gospel to Christian thought was its insight that of mankind. But with all this industry, you shall sin has a social dimension that corrupts social find nowhere on earth so little drudging work institutions just as thoroughly as it corrupts and as in the North.”5 Beecher’s vision of the joy and hardens the hearts of fallen individuals. Revivalists benefits of drudge free labor with its opportunities set their sights on the popular pastimes of the for economic and social advancement is what Walt working class such as drinking, smoking, gambling, Whitman celebrated so exuberantly in his 1860 and dancing. The Social Gospelers were more poem, I Hear America Singing: concerned about systemic injustices that allowed for monopolistic practices and price fixing by giant I Hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, corporations. They worried that the concentration Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it of immense wealth in the hands of a few would should be blithe and strong, subvert the democratic process. They were The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank offended that business made profit maximization or beam, its iron rule at the expense of the golden rule, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, which seeks the good of all. They denounced the or leaves off work, boom and bust economy that created unstable The boatman singing what belongs to him in his social conditions in which unemployment, crime, boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, disease, alcoholism and prostitution flourished.

8 The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the an independent, self-sufficient businessman and hatter singing as he stands, attorney. In the first half of the 19th century this The woodcutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in was the tried and true path to the realization of the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown. the American Dream. Millions had traveled it with Lincoln, and millions more embarked upon it as From the beginning of the 19th century soon as they reached America’s shores. America to the Civil War the American Dream for the was world-renowned as the land of opportunity working man was self-advancement toward “self- and social mobility. Nowhere else could a white sufficiency” through his labor. This was America’s person find a society where there were fewer promise to all white workers. Abraham Lincoln barriers to the upward progress of one’s social saw it as a core value without which America and financial ambitions. Nowhere else could a would not be the free country it was founded man start from the bottom, follow his dream to be. In his first State of the Union Message and achieve it so freely. This early version of the delivered on December 3, 1861 he said, “There is American Dream identified America as a nation not of necessity any such thing as the free hired where anyone who was white could become, if laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many not rich then certainly rich enough to be self- independent men everywhere in these States, a sufficient. This rags to riches narrative took deep few years back in their lives, were hired laborers. root in the American imagination and it became The prudent, penniless beginner in the world axiomatic to all that hard work, thrift and godly labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which character would yield its rewards as surely as day to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his followed night. Yet Lincoln knew that the door to own account another while, and at length hires economic advancement could be closed. Without another beginner to help him. This is the just and vigilance, he saw a future where workers could generous and prosperous system which opens be permanently trapped as hirelings in a work the way to all—gives hope to all, and consequent environment over which they have no control. energy and progress and improvement of That would be another form of slavery and a denial condition to all. No men living are more worthy to of what America was all about. be trusted than those who toil up from poverty— none less inclined to take or touch ought which TWO TALES OF A CENTURY they have not honestly earned. Let them beware After the Civil War when the factory of surrendering a political power which they system rapidly replaced small artisan producers already possess, and which, if surrendered, will there was a sharp increase in drudging work, surely be used to close the door of advancement and a steep decline in opportunities for social against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and advancement by workers. However, there was burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost.”6 no great outcry. The prosperity of the nation as a whole increased at an astonishing rate because Lincoln himself was a model of the goods became plentiful and cheap even as wages industrious, honest laborer who worked his way remained low. As the nineteenth century drew to up the social ladder out of poverty to become

9 a close, the generation that witnessed great leaps toward him and the Spirit of the Eighteenth in technological innovation and mass production Century spoke, ‘Tell thy tale, brother. Give us word marveled at what had been done in their lifetime. of the human kind we left to thee.’ I am the Spirit Americans were swollen with pride at what their of the Wonderful Century. I gave man the mastery ingenuity and industry had wrought. They were over nature. Discoveries and inventions…have transfixed by an optimistic expectation of a future clustered in a Milky Way of radiance under my that held the promise of even greater prosperity rule. One man does by the touch of his hand what and spectacular achievements. Historians of the the toil of a thousand slaves never did. Knowledge time lauded America’s dazzling triumphs. The has unlocked the mines of wealth, and the hoarded author of one popular history wrote: “Among wealth of to-day creates the vaster wealth of the teeming centuries that have swept into the tomorrow. I freed the thoughts of men. I made past none has been so eventful as the nineteenth, men free and equal. I have touched the summit of with its amazing achievements in invention, history. I did for mankind what none of you did discovery, arts, sciences, literature, knowledge before. They are rich. They are wise. They are free.’ and civilization. It is a wonderful story, and no The Spirits of the dead Centuries sat silent. At last one can study it without feeling its awe and the Spirit of the First Century spoke for all. ‘Your impressiveness; and this awe is deepened by words sound as if the redemption of man had come the certainty that as we cross the threshold at last. Has it come? into the twentieth century we enter the field of greater knowledge and advancement, where the You have made men rich. Tell us, is none in pain attainments of man shall surpass all that has gone with hunger to-day and none in fear of hunger for before. Moreover, it is the faith of many that the to-morrow? Has the mastery of nature made men time is at hand when the most momentous of all free to enjoy their lives and loves? discoveries that can bless mankind will be made— You have made men wise. Have they learned to that is the scientific proof of immortality or a life restrain their bodily passions? Have they learned beyond the grave.7 to deal with their fellows in justice and love? In Christianity and the Social Crisis Walter You have set them free. Are all men free to do the Rauschenbusch described an imaginary scene in work they love best? which the recently departed nineteenth century joins his predecessors in the hallowed halls of You have made men one. Do men no longer spill history. Upon its arrival the triumphant nineteenth the blood of men for their ambition and the sweat century is full of boasts, but then is cross examined of men for their greed?’ by the skeptical spirit of the first century. “When the Nineteenth Century died, its Spirit descended As the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century listened, to the vaulted chamber of the Past, where the his head sank to his breast. ‘My great cities are as Spirits of the dead Centuries sit on granite thrones together. When the newcomer entered, all turned

10 Lincoln did not live to see the decline and degradation of the rapidly growing urban working class, but Walt Whitman did. In remarks he prepared in 1879 for a public address he wondered if the America his poetry once celebrated was quickly becoming very much like the Old World which America’s founding generation took up arms against. “Beneath the whole political world, what presses most and perplexes today, sending vastest results affecting the future, is not the abstract question of democracy, but of social and economic Protest against child labor in a labor parade. Photograph organization, the treatment of working people by by George G. Bain; courtesy of the Library of Congress. employers, and all that goes along with it—not only the wages part, but a certain spirit and principle, yours were. My millions live from hand to mouth. to vivify anew these relations. The American Those who toil longest have least. My thousands Revolution of 1776 was simply a great strike, sink exhausted before their days are half spent.”8 successful for its immediate object—but whether THE DREAM IN DECLINE a real success judged by the scale of centuries, yet Wealth disparity, social injustice and remains to be settled. If the United States, like the widespread want among the lower working classes countries of the Old World, are also to grow vast contributed to the “present crisis” which Walter crops of poor, desperate, dissatisfied, nomadic Rauschenbusch described in Christianity and miserably-waged populations, such as we see the Social Crisis. He believed the chief cause of looming upon us of late years...then our republican the crisis was income inequality between capital experiment, not withstanding all its surface 10 and labor, a disparity that was also subversive successes, is at heart an unhealthy failure.” to American democracy. “If a class arrives at Washington Gladden was another whose economic wealth, it will gain political influence and eyes were not blind to the plight of the laboring some form of representation. If therefore we have a classes. He grew to adulthood in the years leading class that owns a large part of the national wealth,... up to the Civil War, and witnessed the changes it is idle to suppose that this class will not see to to American society in the decades following. it that the vast power exerted by the machinery He recognized the changes that took place in of government serves its interests. And, if we the workplace during his lifetime increased have a class which is economically dependent and productivity but not the lot of labor. “It is not very helpless, it is idle to suppose that it will be allowed many years since society in this country was quite an equal voice in swaying political power. The homogeneous; the economical distinction between words of Lincoln find a new application here, that capitalist and laborer was not clearly marked, for the republic cannot be half slave and half free.”9 most capitalists were laborers and most laborers

11 were capitalists; the social distinction was not The factory system reduced labor to many small emphasized; there was really but one social class. steps in a manufacturing process. The boom and But our material progress has given full scope to bust business cycle robbed laborers of economic the principle of differentiation; the wage workers security. Workers had absolutely no bargaining are now distinctly marked off from employers power because businesses pitted their employees and capitalists; labor itself has become highly against a steady stream of unemployed immigrants specialized, and even the old mechanical trades who flooded into American cities by the millions are split into fractional parts through the use eager to do any work at any wage. In fact, working of machinery; industrial groups are numerous, men, women and children were caught in a perfect separate, disparate; the lines of social distinction storm of social facts and forces that held them are sharply drawn.”11 The leaders of the Social in the firm grip of subsistence level living. Their Gospel movement saw the American Dream of plight was made worse by severe fluctuations in opportunity and social advancement as the engine the business cycle that threw millions out of work that drove America to material greatness, but more for months or years at a time, and downturns were importantly it was the Dream that made America seized upon by employers as opportunities to great in a Christian sense. The Dream was great reduce the hours and wages of the laborers they in their eyes because of its compatibility with continued to employ. The situation of workers was the fundamental Christian values of freedom for so dire, wages so low, and competition so intense personal betterment, brotherly love, and honest for even the most repugnant of jobs Henry George labor in service to a greater good. The promise wrote in 1883: “We have not really abolished of the Dream was to “lift up the lowly and fill the slavery; we have retained it in its most insidious hungry with good things.”12 Now too many of the and widespread form—in a form which applies to lowly were trapped in their lowly estate, and too whites as to blacks. The essence of slavery is the many remained hungry. robbery of labor. It consists in compelling men to work, yet taking from them all the produce of their THE NEW SLAVERY labor except what suffices for a bare living. Of how In the 1870s and ’80s the American many of our ‘free and equal American citizens’ is Labor Movement began to gain momentum on that already the lot? And of how many more is it a national scale around a dream to improve the coming to be the lot?”13 lives of the millions of wage earning men, women and children across all trades and industries. The Knights of Labor was founded in Unionization was a response to cutthroat business 1869 to give the working classes a united and practices which kept wages at rock bottom levels. They required long hours of repetitive, strenuous Caught in a perfect storm tasks, in factories where working conditions of social facts and forces were unsafe and unsanitary. The specialization of factory labor robbed the free laborer of his opportunity to become an independent craftsman. “ ”

12 more powerful voice. A general assembly was in dead end factory jobs was the only option open convened by the Knights in 1878 which adopted to unskilled workers. Another cultural headwind a vision statement calling for uniting working that blew back against the demands of organized people regardless of trade, race or gender into one labor was the rising influence of the Horatio national labor union, and the creation of a just Alger dime novels that cultivated a “rags to riches” society in which moral worth, not wealth was the narrative which held that any young white man measure of greatness, and where labor and capital by sheer determination and personal initiative cooperated for a common national good that could achieve the American Dream. This was served the interests of all. also a time when Social Darwinism flourished. Its proponents applied the principle of survival Added to this proclamation was a list of short term of the fittest to the competition between nations, goals: races and businesses. Consequently, the titans of capital were lionized in the press and celebrated I. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear as the fittest and noblest specimens of Anglo- equally upon capital and labor. Saxon humanity. Those at the top saw themselves II. The enactment of laws to compel chartered as the winners of the greatest prize that the corporations to pay their employees weekly, in full, American Dream had to offer. They cultivated an for labor performed during the preceding week. image of themselves as self-made men who pulled themselves up from poverty to the pinnacle of III. The prohibition of the employment of children success by their own drive and resourcefulness. on workshops, mines, and factories before There was a grain of truth to their narrative. Some attaining their fourteenth year. started out poor but most started rich. Luck and circumstance also played a role in their success. IV. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal All were of western European descent and came work. of age before or just after the Civil War when opportunities for advancement abounded. Once V. The reduction of the hours of labor to eight per they achieved a certain level of success they day.14 created monopolies that enabled them to corner WHOSE DREAM IS IT? their markets and close the path of success to As reasonable as these reform measures their rivals. They also treated labor as just another sound today, in the 1880s and ’90s they were natural resource to be exploited and tossed aside. largely regarded as radically contrary to the The winners in this cutthroat game became iconic traditional American values of free labor and embodiments of Anglo-Saxon superiority and the individual initiative. The popular attitude toward epitome of the American Dream. labor lagged behind new workplace realities. Most THE CHANGING FACE OF LABOR Americans held to a version of free labor as it was While the giants of capital were portrayed before the factory system became widespread in as the role models of American success, a steady America. In the Gilded Age, however, wage labor

13 tide of immigration was changing the face of labor. bravest to speak against every wrong, and By the 1870s one third of the work force consisted the strongest to rally the moral forces of the of immigrants most of whom were neither of community against everything that threatens Anglo-Saxon descent nor Protestant. “The popular the better life among men.16 However, many image of the industrial worker underwent a major clergymen chose to remain silent on the revision; the worker now appeared as foreign, controversial Labor Question. Historians alien, in need of Americanizing. Increasing ethnic who have looked into this subject report that diversity and the making of a new industrial “published sermons of the period suggest that working class constituted a single process, universals replaced specifics in most Sunday introducing cultural difference into American life morning services. They estimate that less than five on an unprecedented scale [so that] an aura of a percent mentioned social or economic problems. more general cultural foreignness began to attach Many ministers of the era were so committed itself to manual wage labor itself. On every count, to the ideal of personal regeneration that they labor seemed to represent a foreign culture, alien expressed little concern for society in general.”17 to American values epitomized by successful representatives of capital.”15 The American Washington Gladden worried that the public appreciated labor in general but not in its Christian clergy might lack the conviction and organized manifestations. The laborers whom the courage to stand against the prevailing winds of public admired were Anglo-Saxon and white, not the political and economic status quo. “There is blacks or brown skinned foreigners. A distinction imminent danger that our churches, instead of was made between laborers and strikers. Laborers shaping society, will be shaped by society; that kept America running smoothly. Strikers the laws of nature (survival of the fittest), working jeopardized America’s prosperity and threatened themselves out in the world of finance and exchanges, its values. Strikers were associated with foreign will domineer the Christian law (the golden rule); born anarchists and socialist union organizers that the fissure now running through the social world, whose goal was to destroy America by inciting a and threatening to become a great gulf fixed between class war of the have nots against the haves. the employing and laboring classes, will divide the religious world as well.”18 Gladden’s fears of a coming A CONFLICTED CHURCH religious divide were well founded. The churches of Proponents of the Social Gospel saw the Gilded Age became passionately polarized on the the church as having a large stake in this clash Labor Question. The majority by far came down on of values between rich and poor classes. They the side of capital, against organized labor. Gladden realized that the Labor Question was one of was a frequent contributor to his denominational its main spiritual battlefields. Rauschenbusch paper, The Congregationalist, but the May 13, 1887 believed that “the Church is to be the incarnation issue in an opinion piece “suggested the Gatling gun of the Christ-spirit on earth, the organized as the best way to deal with a mob of workers.” In conscience of Christendom. It should be the another issue “The Congregationalist characterized swiftest to awaken to every undeserved suffering,

14 the unemployed as profane, licentious, filthy, vermin- will solve themselves; that right relations will swarming thieves, petty robbers and sometimes necessarily be established between social classes. murders, social pests and perambulatory nuisances.”19 In dealing with this objection, it was only too apparent that the facts did not support it. Many Disparaging descriptions of strikers were of them were practicing injustice and cruelty, quite common in evangelical publications. One without any sense of the evil of their conduct…If cannot help but think that such ungracious a man was converted and joined the church, it did sentiments are examples of church communities not occur to him that the fact had any relation to being shaped by the biases of an America steeped the management of his mill or his factory.”20 in a sense of Anglo-Saxon supremacy. White America was alarmed by the steady stream of LEGACY OF THE SOCIAL GOSPEL Italian, Polish, Slavic, and Jewish strangers into The Social Gospel movement planted seeds America’s cities who were not white, and not that bore fruit in the Progressive era and beyond. Protestant. From the moment of their arrival Most notably three of four amendments to the they were viewed as inferior beings and foreign United States Constitution that were ratified invaders who would take American jobs and between 1913 and 1920 addressed social justice who held subversive ideologies. Campaigns issues. A graduated income tax, the popular were organized to Christianize and Americanize election of senators, and granting women the them because evangelical Protestants saw their vote were adopted to strengthen democracy and squalid ghetto existence as due, not to widespread create a more equitable and just society. Other discrimination and systemic social injustice, but to progressive reforms such as the initiative and their personal moral depravity and godlessness. referendum were adopted by many states. In 1935 the National Labor Relations Act, affirming the The Social Gospel movement battled the right of employees to organize into trade unions individualistic mindset that blamed the victims of and to bargain collectively with their employers poverty for their own misery. Eventually reports was passed by Congress. These Progressive era were published that indicated more workers and New Deal reforms that enabled the American were unemployed due to injuries on the job than Dream to flourish for more millions of citizens to drink or indolence. Realizations such as this than ever before had their roots in the Social brought the unique insights of Gladden and other Gospel movement. Proponents of the Social Social Gospel reformers into play. The growing Gospel shared in the prejudices of their age. Yet, realization by the public that the sources of for all their faults, false turns and failures, they some social problems were institutional led to were a school of prophetic voices that pricked the the acceptance of institution-oriented solutions. conscience of a nation. They opened the eyes of a Gladden observed that this progressive insight people who were blinded by their own astonishing remained a contested point in those churches material success and strong sense of racial which were committed to a gospel concerned only superiority, to the existence of extreme poverty about individual salvation. “It was urged that if and social injustice in their gleaming cities. The men are only “saved” all questions of this nature

15 Social Gospel was a movement of American dreamers, informed by the teaching of Jesus, and inspired by the promise of the American Dream to make America a just and good commonwealth: A shining city upon a hill.

endnotes

1 Lawrence R. Samuel, The American Dream: A Cultural History, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2012, 13.

2 Jim Cullen, The American Dream: The Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.

3 Otto L. Bettmann, The Good Old Days—They Were Terrible!, New York, Random House, 1974, 67.

4 Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, New York, Mac- millan Company, 1907, 252.

5 Henry Ward Beecher, Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society, Rochester, Steam Press of A. Strong and Co., 1855, 39.

6 Maureen Harrison and Steve Gilbert, eds. Abraham Lincoln in His Own Words, New York, Barnes and Noble, 1996, 335.

7 Edward S. Ellis, Popular History of the World and Triumphs of the 19th Norman Erlendson has been the pastor of Century, Chicago, George Spiel Publisher, 1900, 10, 567. Third Congregational Church of Middletown, 8 Rauschenbusch, 211-212.

9 Rauschenbusch, 253-254. Connecticut since 2007, having spent the

10 Walt Whitman, The Complete Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman, New previous 17 years at Maltby Congregational York, Garden City Books, 1948, vol. 2, 349-350. Church in Snohomish, Washington. He holds a 11 Washington Gladden, Social Facts and Forces, New York, Macmillan, 1897, 194-195. Master of Arts in History from the University of 12 Luke 1:52-53 Washington, and a Master of Arts in Christian 13 Henry George, Social Problems, New York, The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1946, 152-153. Theology and Ethics from New College, Berkeley, 14 Janette Thomas Greenwood, The Gilded Age: A History in Documents, California. With a deep interest in the history New York, Oxford Press, 2000, 52-53.

15 Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in of American Congregationalism and the Social the Gilded Age, New York, Hill and Wang, 1982, 87-88. Gospel Movement, he has been the President 16 Rauschenbusch, 287. of the Washington Gladden Society since 17 William Bos and Clyde Faries, “The Social Gospel: Preaching Reform 1875-1915”, in Preaching in American History, Dewitt Holland, editor, Nash- ville, Abingdon Press, 1969, 225-226. 2004, which seeks to serve as a forum for the

18 Washington Gladden, Working People and their Employers, New York, discussion of issues related to the church and Funk and Wagnalls, 1894, 187-188. social justice. In 2015, he was elected to serve 19 William Bos and Clyde Faries, 228-229. as the Historian for the National Association of 20 Washington Gladden, Recollections, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1909, 252. Congregational Christian Churches.

16 The Social Gospel & the Legacies of —Walter Rauschenbusch— —Henry Hugh Proctor— —Georgia Harkness—

by Christopher Evans

I had never heard of the term “social recognized the need to move beyond traditional gospel” until I attended seminary in the mid- Christian charity to engage the existence of 1980s. When I learned about the history of the “structural sin” in American institutional life.2 The social gospel movement, I discovered not only an commitment to engage structural inequalities important part of the broader story of American led social gospelers to address numerous issues Christianity, but a topic that informed many pertaining to economic justice, racial equality, and aspects of my subsequent ministry, teaching, and women’s rights. Briefly, I want to present sketches scholarship. of three very different church leaders who I believe highlight the social concerns and the religious The social gospel defies easy definition. commitments coming out of the social gospel: As a historical movement, the term most often Walter Rauschenbusch, Henry Hugh Proctor, and refers to a period between roughly 1880 until 1920 Georgia Harkness. These persons illustrate critical when a variety of religious institutions, primarily components for understanding the social gospel within American Protestantism, began a process both as a distinctive historical movement and as a of reformulating their theological teachings living tradition that continues to inform faith and to address a range of contemporary social action within many churches today. issues. Shailer Mathews, a Baptist clergyman and prominent social gospel leader of the early Walter Rauschenbusch and the “Social twentieth century, defined the social gospel as “the Awakening” application of the teaching of Jesus and the total In 1886, Walter Rauschenbusch (1861- message of the Christian salvation to society, the 1918) was a young minister serving a small, economic life, and social institutions… as well as impoverished German-immigrant congregation to individuals.”1 Susan Hill Lindley expands upon in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City. this definition by noting how the social gospel It was in this context of urban poverty that led

17 insistence that inherent to Christianity’s mission was a belief that the gospel message not only needed to change persons, but social systems. For Rauschenbusch, “salvation is always a social process” that not only involved an individual’s relationship with God, but spoke to the reality of how God’s love called people to live lives rooted in a passion for justice.3

rauschenbusch had the opportunity to articulate his beliefs fully in the early twentieth century, after he became Professor of Church History at Rochester Theological Seminary—a northern Baptist seminary in western New York. His major books, including Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Christianizing the Social Order (1912) and A Theology for the Social Walter Rauschenbusch. Gospel (1917), developed the theological contours that characterized the social gospel movement Rauschenbusch’s to embrace what he and others as it evolved during the twentieth century. commonly referred to as a “social awakening” Rauschenbusch’s theology was rooted in a powerful within America’s churches. Rauschenbusch’s vision of economic justice and, like Washington father had been a theologically conservative Gladden, he strongly supported measures that German Baptist minister who emphasized that called for government regulation of the private the primary purpose of Christianity was personal sector to protect laborers from unsafe working conversion. Walter Rauschenbusch never doubted conditions. Rauschenbusch advocated for wealth the importance of a vital piety, however, he sharing initiatives that would allow the poor longed for an understanding of faith that could access to an education, affordable housing, and be applicable to the social-economic conditions employment that provided workers a living wage. of the late nineteenth century—especially related to the needs of the nation’s poor. In the 1880s, as an integral part of wider Progressive- Rauschenbusch was influenced by many church Era social reform efforts, Rauschenbusch leaders to rethink traditional evangelical notions advanced a vision emphasizing that the nation’s of salvation. One of his biggest influences was the social-economic problems were not simply Congregational minister, Washington Gladden. political questions, but matters of faith. His Seen by many historians as the “father” of the understanding of the kingdom of God was rooted social gospel movement in the U.S., Gladden in a belief that history presented women and men stressed the concept of “social salvation,” an the opportunity to work together to create a just world. “All history becomes the unfolding of the

18 includes, most notably, Martin Luther King, Salvation is always a social process Jr. who wrote, “it has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls “ ” of men and is not concerned about the social purpose of the immanent God who is working in and economic conditions that scar the soul, is a the race toward the commonwealth of spiritual spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the liberty and righteousness. History is the sacred day to be buried.”6 workshop of God.”4 Henry Hugh Proctor and the Witness for Racial at times, Rauschenbusch became Justice a contentious figure because of what some one of the most common critiques perceived to be his political radicalism. He of figures like Walter Rauschenbusch was actively supported Socialist Party presidential their failure to systemically address issues of candidates and was highly critical of business racial justice. However, scholars have pointed leaders who earned their wealth at the expense to the ministries of many white and black of the poor. By the same token, Rauschenbusch’s religious reformers in the late nineteenth and faith reflected a deep-seated piety that anchored early twentieth centuries that saw a vigorous his vision of justice in the insistence that authentic engagement against racism as the primary social transformation needed to be grounded in means for churches to achieve a vision of “social a life of prayer. His book, Prayers of the Social salvation”—the transformation of persons and Awakening (1910) contained numerous prayers society. An especially unique, and forgotten, that were designed to be used for a variety of example was an African-American Congregational public occasions. Although he affirmed that while minister, Henry Hugh Proctor (1868-1933). personal devotion was vital to the Christian life, Proctor was the long-time minister of the First prayer needed to transcend our own personal Congregational Church of Atlanta, GA. First needs. In challenging persons who only saw Congregational Church was established after faith as a personal quest to get to heaven, the Civil War by the American Missionary Rauschenbusch noted, “The question is, which will Association, a group largely made up of northern do more to make our lives spiritual and to release Congregationalists who transformed abolitionist us from the tyranny of the world, the thought that zeal into the establishment of numerous we may at any moment enter into the presence of African-American colleges and churches in the the Lord, or the thought that every moment we are Reconstruction era South. When Proctor became in the presence of the Lord?”5 pastor of the First Congregational Church in 1894, he was the first African American minister of In the years following his death, the church and his preaching made him popular Rauschenbusch’s legacy helped shape a heritage of with both black and white audiences. Washington faith based social action in the twentieth century. Gladden who visited First Congregational Church The list of persons influenced by Rauschenbusch

19 on several occasions observed that Proctor South. His efforts to promote racial tolerance possessed “the dignity and self-command of the were praised by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt true orator; it is easy to understand the hold he and William Howard Taft, and the popular author maintains over this large congregation.”7 Proctor’s Bruce Barton went so far as to identify First oratory was one part of his success. When he Congregational Church under Proctor’s leadership began his ministry the church’s membership as “the Church that Saved a City.”9 Although was approximately 100. When he left Atlanta in Proctor’s name has largely been forgotten, he is the 1920 for a pastorate in Brooklyn, the church’s embodiment of an important dimension of a wider membership stood at 1,000. history of interracial cooperation in the American South that became vital to the success of the civil however, Proctor was more than just a rights movement in the twentieth century. popular preacher. Amid the harsh realities of segregated Atlanta, Proctor not only preached Georgia Harkness: a Hardy Perennial for racial tolerance, but developed a wide- late in her career, Georgia Harkness range of ministries that empowered African (1891-1974) remarked that throughout her life Americans. Proctor created what has often been she had been a “hardy perennial.” This metaphor called an “institutional church” model. Much like transcends Harkness’ love of gardening and the late nineteenth-century settlement house reflects upon her ability to thrive as a woman movement associated with Jane Addams, Proctor’s within a male-dominated church. Growing up congregation fostered a range of ministries that in rural upstate New York, Harkness initially included numerous men’s and women’s groups, a dreamed of joining the Student Volunteer Christian Endeavor Society (a popular Protestant Movement, a late nineteenth century organization youth movement of that era), recreation facilities, that was part of a wide network of evangelical classroom space, and a temperance society. One Protestant movements geared toward recruiting commentator noted that First Church “was the people for domestic and foreign mission service. most progressive and best organized church I saw After graduating from Cornell University, in the South,” with a social impact that exceeded Harkness received her Ph.D. at Boston University much larger congregations.8 In 1904. Proctor and then embarked on a distinguished academic was elected assistant moderator of the National career that culminated with an appointment Council of Congregational Churches. to the faculty of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. Harkness was a prolific from the standpoint of our time, Proctor’s author who wrote a wide range of books on ministry and outlook on race relations can be philosophy and theology. However, one of her seen as quite conservative. However, at a time in greatest contributions is that she wrote many American history that scholars have identified as works designed for Christian laity. Prior to her the nadir of African American civil rights, Proctor father’s death in 1937, he remarked that he was a strong advocate for justice, equipping the wished his daughter “would write more about black community in Atlanta with the practical Jesus Christ.” Harkness recounted that her tools to survive and thrive in the segregated

20 father’s words represented “a definite turn in my writing and thinking toward a more Christ- centered approach to religious truth.”10 In the years following her father’s death, Harkness discovered a new sense of purpose as a writer, teacher, and church leader. Her titles, including The Dark Night of the Soul (1940) and Understanding the Christian Faith (1948), reflect Harkness’ wide ranging interests in spirituality, prayer, and the cultivation of Christian piety.

By the same token, Harkness was a tireless social activist. At a time in the mid-twentieth century when most Protestant denominations prohibited women from being ordained, Harkness strove to open doors. She was instrumental in Georgia Harkness. getting the Methodist Church to approve the full ordination of women in 1956 and was also Assembly of the World Council of Churches in a prominent voice for racial justice within that Evanston, IL in 1954—a hymn still widely sung in tradition. Her activism carried over into Harkness’ many churches today. role in the mid-twentieth century Protestant While Harkness was influenced by ecumenical movement. For many decades, she the theological tradition of Christian realism was an important leader in the Federal Council commonly associated with Reinhold Niebuhr, her and World Council of Churches and participated basic theological orientation was strongly shaped in some of the major ecumenical gatherings of the by Walter Rauschenbusch. Harkness frequently mid-twentieth century—while often enduring the returned to the theme that work for the creation condescending attitude of her male colleagues. of just society would never be fully realized in a At the founding meeting of the World Council given historical context. “When we have finished of Churches in 1948, Harkness got into a debate our theologizing, we shall not understand all with Karl Barth, questioning Barth’s assertion mysteries,” she reflected in 1955. At the same that the Old Testament proved the culpability of time, she saw Christian faith as an ability to live women for original sin. Barth’s effort to debate faithfully in confidence that visions for a just world Harkness failed to convince many, and when he would not die, whereby “our faith in Jesus Christ was asked to recount his encounter with Harkness our Lord can give us the assurance of things hoped years later, he replied curtly, “Remember me not for, the conviction of things not seen. And is not of that woman!”11 Harkness’ passion for justice that, after all, the object of the quest?”12 was embodied in her hymn, “Hope of the World” that became an anthem for the Second General

21 personal faith and religious activism go hand and Personal faith and religious hand. Through the lives of Walter Rauschenbusch, activism go hand and hand Henry Proctor, and Georgia Harkness one recognizes that the church’s work cannot promote piety without a concern for social justice, and that “ ” the work to transform society cannot be separated An Enduring Legacy from lives of personal devotion. Rauschenbusch, These brief accounts reflect upon models of Proctor, and Harkness were united behind a Christian faith that take seriously the integration shared conviction that questions of social justice of personal faith and social justice. The wider were not just matters of political and social history of mainline Protestantism has often been engagement; they were fundamentally questions of described as one of constant division between faith that challenged the consciences of Christians. “evangelicals,” who focus primarily on personal As we reflect upon the histories of the church, salvation, and “liberals” who focus primarily we need to be mindful of persons in our histories on social justice. Part of what the history of the who continually model for us today this creative social gospel heritage does is to remind us that synthesis of personal piety and social justice.

Endnotes 1 Quoted in Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards and Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford, eds., Gender and the Social Gospel (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 2. 2 Susan Hill Lindley, “Deciding Who Counts: Toward a Revised Definition of the Social Gospel,” in The Social Gospel Today, ed. Christopher H. Evans (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 17-26.

3 Winthrop Hudson, ed., Walter Rauschenbusch: Selected Writings (New Christopher Evans is Professor of the History York: Paulist Press, 1984), 176. of Christianity at Boston University School of 4 Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order (New York: Macmillan Press, 1912), 121. Theology. He is the author of several books,

5 Winthrop Hudson, ed., Walter Rauschenbusch: Selected Writings, 94. including The Kingdom is Always but Coming: a 6 Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), 91. Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Eerdmans, 2004), 7 Ralph E. Luker, The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Liberalism without Illusions: Renewing an American Reform (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 184.

8 Luker, 184. Christian Tradition (Baylor University Press, 2010),

9 Luker, 190. and Histories of American Christianity: an Introduction

10 Rosemary Skinner Keller, Georgia Harkness: For Such a Time as This (Baylor, 2013). He is currently writing a book on (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 209.

11 the history of the social gospel movement in the Keller, 251.

12 Keller, 302. U.S. to be published by New York University Press.

22 Union Made by Heath Carter

on the morning of Sunday, September sympathies without giving offense. But she was not 4th, 1910, the people of Winnetka Congregational about to let Winnetka Congregational’s members Church beheld a peculiar sight: when it came so easily off the hook. At one point in her sermon time for the sermon, a woman rose to the pulpit. – which included forceful calls for both the That in itself would have been enough to generate abolition of the piecework system and eight-hour headlines, but there was more. Agnes Nestor legislation for women – she vowed, “You are so far was not the type of person to darken the door removed from the life of the factory girl that you of this fashionable church, located in Chicago’s cannot understand the view she takes of life.”2 affluent North Shore. She was a “militant labor leader,” or so a sensational story in that morning’s Notably, Nestor was one of at least six Inter Ocean declared. Nestor was the secretary Chicago union leaders to preach that morning of the International Glove Workers’ Union and and they were in turn participants in a much the treasurer of the local chapter of the Women’s larger celebration. Across the nation, Christian Trade Union League, and the title of her sermon, ministers responded positively to the American as announced beforehand, was “The Life of Federation of Labor’s call for them to observe Working Girls Today in Shops and Factories.”1 “Labor Sunday” by devoting the day’s worship services to pressing issues of worker justice. Even a Nestor minced no words, enumerating decade or two before, such a response would have in detail the physical, emotional, and spiritual been unimaginable. Amidst the brutal industrial challenges facing working women. “A girl who warfare of the late nineteenth century, the works long hours on a nerve-racking job begins to churches had consistently sided with capital over lose her former view of life,” she observed, before labor. But the early years of the twentieth century going on to say, “No longer does she smile; she witnessed a sea change, as denomination after loses the rollicking laugh of girlhood. Unless she denomination acknowledged the legitimacy of the has a strong determination to better herself, she trade union movement. Workers themselves keyed gives up in despair and continues to work for an the turnabout. Indeed, the scene at Winnetka oppressive task master on a meager salary until her Congregational on Labor Sunday 1910 illustrates health begins to fail.” Had Nestor left the subject a much broader reality, which is that some of the there, she might have aroused the audience’s most important catalysts for the rise of Social

23 Christianity, both within Congregationalism and patton’s words left Cameron incensed beyond, were glove makers, blacksmiths, and the and prompted him to issue a series of withering like, most of whom are long since forgotten. retorts. In one he argued that the clergyman had “prostitute[d] the function of a minister of the andrew Cameron was one such person. In gospel to…sustain a villainy against which the the wake of the Civil War the Scottish immigrant vengeance of heaven is assured.” As if that was not founded the Workingman’s Advocate, a newspaper clear enough, he went on, “[Patton’s] sentiments, that soon gained a national audience and vaulted sentiments too which are promulgated in nine- him to the fore of the early American labor tenths of our sanctuaries, are repugnant alike to the movement. For Cameron, questions about wages teachings of Christ and the enlightened spirit of the and the length of the workday were directly age.”5 The framing of Cameron’s critique was telling. tied to others about the meaning of the gospel He was convinced that the labor movement was for industrializing society. This became evident not just fully compatible but was in fact a tangible starting in the spring of 1867, when not a single manifestation of “the gospel” and “the teachings Chicago minister came to the aid of what would of Christ.” It was Patton who had gone astray. As ultimately prove a failed general strike for the Cameron went on to write, “Our fight is not against eight-hour day. Immediately on the heels of this Christianity, but against those who use it as a betrayal, Cameron lashed out, declaring, “In all cloak to secure their selfish purposes.”6 In the years reforms, in which labor and capital have been and decades that followed Cameron continued interested, the Church has thrown its influence to preach a working-class social gospel, one that 3 in behalf of the money changers.” That was what often put him at odds with leading ministers. Even he had to say before William W. Patton, one of Washington Gladden was not beyond reproach. Chicago’s leading Congregational divines, poured When in 1876 he published Working People and salt in the wound, delivering a scathing critique their Employers, an early statement of his views of labor in the Advance: “For several years past on the labor question, Cameron responded with preconcerted and systematic effort have been a scathing review, in which he called the book made by demagogues and so-called friends of “worthless” and insisted, “The author ought to have American mechanics and labor men, to cause put the Englishmen’s motto in front: ‘You keep ’em them to be dissatisfied and discontented with the pious and we’ll keep ’em poor.’”7 position to which the Supreme Ruler of all has assigned them in this world.”4 had Cameron been a lone voice crying out into the wilderness, church leaders might the Church has thrown have ignored him, but that he was not. Countless its influence in behalf of other working people professed a pro-labor faith, including any number of working women. In the money changers Gilded Age Chicago few did so with more gusto than Maria Darker Wynkoop, a British immigrant “ ” who arrived in the city by 1870 and went on to

24 write a regular column for the Chicago Tribune. In it she frequently criticized the churches’ churches were losing antagonistic posture toward labor, writing in one the allegiance of exemplary piece, “Did the ministers of the Gospel the working classes perform their duty and maintain the cause of the struggling poor as did Christ, our beloved country would not be in the condition it is to-day.”8 “ ” Wynkoop’s dissenting interpretation of Christ’s He was of and for the people.” He went on to ministry resonated with her readers, including one stipulate the obvious corollary, “The spirit of Jesus woman whose letter to the editor proclaimed, “At is absent from the modern church,” a conviction present the workingman is rather repelled than that informed O’Brien’s comments as well. As he otherwise by the grand church, the grand people put it, “When I go to church I see in the front pew who are there, and the grand rent marked on the a man who snatched the bed from under a widow, empty pew he finds his way into.”9 and in another pew a man whose real estate is used for immoral purposes. If the church bore any When such sentiments began to translate resemblance to Jesus I would be a church-goer, but into concerted action, working people caught the it does not.” These stinging barbs did not sit well clergy’s attention in a new way. Indeed, by the with the audience, which included William Rainey early 1890s a fear that the churches were losing Harper, the president of the University of Chicago, the allegiance of the working classes gripped who challenged Rogers and O’Brien, “Why not ministers across the industrializing world. Labor found a church of your own?” Little did Harper leaders knew that this pervasive anxiety presented anticipate that they would go on to do just that.10 them with an opportunity and they perfected the art of capitalizing upon it. Consider what But sure enough, on 11 February 1894 happened at the 1894 annual meeting of Chicago’s the Modern Church held its inaugural service at Congregational Club, which was dedicated to Bricklayers’ Hall. The organization, sponsored by the theme of the “Relation of the Church to the Chicago’s Trades and Labor Assembly, refused Laboring World.” The invited speakers included to accept any funds from the city’s economic Louis W. Rogers, the editor of the Railway Times, elite, thereby freeing itself to preach the simple and L. T. O’Brien, the president of the retail clerks’ truths of a creedless Christianity akin to that once union, both of whom were ardent proponents of propounded by a first-century Nazarene carpenter. a working-class social Christianity. If the Club’s In its initial weeks, the Modern Church hosted pro- well-heeled members did not realize this coming labor preachers such as the Unitarian Jenkin Lloyd in, they figured it out when Rogers pronounced, Jones and garnered numerous headlines for its “I know where Christ stood. He was for the poor. unconventional approach to worship. The religious He warned the rich, he denounced force and press was predictably perturbed. The editor of the wealth and usury. He toadied to no monopolist, Advance expressed frustration with those who he preached from no palaces, he sold no pews! would “kick and cuff the church up and down all

25 conclusion: if the churches hoped to preserve their long formidable influence, they must find a way to embrace trade unionism.

It was little coincidence that, in the early years of the twentieth century, a middle-class Social Gospel finally took root in the institutional churches themselves. In 1908 the Methodist Episcopal Church adopted a Social Creed, which was ratified by the Federal Council of Churches the streets,” and went on to say, “It is all fun for shortly after its founding that same year. The the critics. But it is about as unlike Christianity, in document called for “the abolition of child labor”; whose name it indulges itself, as anything could “for the suppression of the ‘sweating system’; and well be.”11 The Modern Church did not last long “for a living wage in every industry.” The Social – it disappears from the historical record later Creed has often been viewed as a pathbreaking that spring – but it nevertheless compounded statement and, in the context of official church church leaders’ mounting anxieties about “The teaching, it certainly was. But as the stories Workingman’s Alienation from the Church.” recounted above suggest, such touchstones of middle-class social Christianity were also, at the In 1896, a Baptist minister by the name very same time, belated responses to a generation of Henry F. Perry published an article with that of working-class religious activism. Indeed, it title in the American Journal of Sociology. Eager to was first and foremost the prophetic witness of understand the roots of working-class alienation, working women and men which drove the rise Perry distributed surveys to workers across the of the American Social Gospel. A headline in the country. The responses were telling. One wrote, Tribune the morning after Labor Sunday 1910 “Jesus Christ is with us outside the church, and we suggested as much: “Gospel of Unions Told in shall prevail with God.” Another lamented, “most of Pulpits,” it read. It was the “told in pulpits” part the ministers are muzzled by their masters and dare that must have piqued readers’ interest. After all, not preach the gospel of the carpenter of Nazareth.” the fact that the city was home to a vital pro-union Perry summarized their thoughts on what might gospel was by that point old news. attract working people back to the churches: “Apply the Sermon on the Mount”; “Preach Christianity instead of theology”; “Let the pastor have a personal relation with the needs of labor. Be our champion.”12 His findings were hardly unique. Across the industrial north, from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, and from New Jersey to Ohio, ministers conducted analogous studies, which all pointed to the same

26 Heath W. Carter is an assistant professor of history at Valparaiso University, where he teaches a variety of courses on the modern United States. He is the author of Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity Endnotes 1 “Girl Labor Leader to Occupy Pulpit,” Inter Ocean, 4 September 1910. in Chicago (Oxford, 2015), and the co-editor of 2 “Labor Sunday’ is Observed in Church,” Inter Ocean, 5 September 1910. three other volumes: The Pew and the Picket Line: 3 “A Small Stream from a Large Fountain,” Workingman’s Advocate 4, no. 9 (21 September 1867). Christianity and the American Working Class, which

4 “The Working Men of the Present Day,” Advance 1, no. 4 (26 September is forthcoming with University of Illinois Press 1867): 1. in March 2016; Turning Points in the History of 5 “Autor Ultra Crepidam!” Workingman’s Advocate, 28 September 1867.

6 “Christianity a Failure,” Workingman’s Advocate 4, no. 42 (9 May 1868): 2. American Evangelicalism, which will be published

7 “Working People and their Employers,” Workingman’s Advocate 12, no. 8 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in (26 August 1876): 2. 2016; and A Documentary History of Religion in 8 Mrs. M. D. Wynkoop, “The Labor Question,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 1 March 1874. America, concise ed., which will also be published 9 H. G. C., “Views of a Mechanic’s Wife,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 15 March 1874. by Eerdmans in 2016. Carter is currently the

10 “Church is criticized: L. W. Rogers’ Plain Talk to the Congregational Club,” University Research Professor at Valparaiso Chicago Daily Tribune, 23 January 1894; “The Congregational Club” and “Labor and the Church,” Railway Times 1, no. 3 (1 February 1894): 3. University, an appointment that comes with a

11 “The Pulpit,” Advance 28, no. 1477 (1 March 1894): 135. research leave to begin his next book project, a 12 H. Francis Perry, “The Workingman’s Alienation from the Church,” American Journal of Sociology 4, no. 5 (March 1899): 621-629. new history of the Social Gospel in American Life.

27 It’s more than just a straight history, though. Last The Last Puritans also deals with bigger questions about mainline Protestants in the twentieth century and Puritans: how they came to terms with historical change, how they came to understand their faith as true Mainline Protestants but also changing its meaning over time. This may not seem like a huge issue for some of us, and the Power of but a hundred years ago it was at the center of a passionate debate about the Bible. Could it be the Past true if it wasn’t historically accurate? Could it be relevant if the authors lived long ago in a different culture? Congregationalists had to ask themselves Dr. Kenneth Minkema hard questions about the meaning and relevance of interviews history all the time. And they began to understand that change could take many directions; there was Peggy Bendroth no predestined form to follow.

Just to clarify, by mainline I mean those denominations on the more moderate to liberal Dr. Kenneth Minkema is the Executive Editor, end of the spectrum—Congregationalists, but Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale Divinity School Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians. Until lately, historians have Peggy Bendroth is the Executive Director of the paid them surprisingly little attention. They’ve Congregational Library & Archives and author of been described as “the bland leading the bland,” a many books on religion in America. Her latest, The kind of thin lowest-common-denominator religion Last Puritans is published by UNC Press. without much drama. Not surprisingly, historians of American religion, including me, have done Question: Let’s start out with the obvious first lots of writing and research on their more colorful question. What is Last Puritans about? What’s the fundamentalist and evangelical cousins. main argument in the book? The Congregationalists I found were just as Answer: First of all, this is a history of American interesting, but in their own way. They were Congregationalism after 1800. That’s a period passionate about history, and used it in all kinds relatively unknown even to most historians. We of surprising and creative ways. After all, they have lots of great literature on the Pilgrims, had one of the best stories ever. In the early Puritans, and Jonathan Edwards, but after that nineteenth century, when Congregationalists it’s mostly bits and pieces. And so my book tells a first began to stake a claim to their Pilgrim and story that begins in the early 1800s and continues Puritan ancestors, Americans in general were on to the present.

28 tying all sorts of ideals and legends to the story Question: Any curious things you found? of Plymouth Rock. For Congregationalists, however, it was a much-needed source of unity Answer: I came across odd things all the time, and common identity, and over time helped them some sad, others funny, and others downright work through questions of polity. But they also puzzling. It’s quite something to read hate mail had fun: since I came to the Library ten years addressed to a Victorian gentleman whose portrait ago, I’ve wondered why Congregationalists, more hangs on the Library wall. I read letters from than any other denomination, loved to dress up some of the “grand old men” of the late-nineteenth in costumes. The front cover of the book is a century, putting together a scheme to raise money “tableau vivante,” very serious and earnest people for the denomination. They ended up minting posing together to recreate the writing of the a coin embossed with a scene from Plymouth Mayflower Compact. and a picture of the Mayflower, and were pretty confident that all loyal Congregationalists would buy one. What does it say that we have boxes of them still up in the archive? One of Question: How did you get interested? my favorite finds was from a group of “reverse pilgrims,” a small party sent to England by the Answer: It was hard not to get interested in this Congregationalist in 1896. Their mission was to story since my office is on the first floor of the visit all the scenes of sainted historical memory— Library stacks. Every day I walk through shelves places like Scrooby parish and Austerfield, the of books with intriguing titles and over time, I birthplace of William Bradford—and to send began to realize that they were telling a story. The greetings from America. It sounded a little more I browsed and pondered the more I ran into dull to me until I came across some of their books, pamphlets, plays, and music celebrating correspondence. Apparently they were having way the Pilgrims and Puritans. At the same time I more fun than anybody knew at the time. had people asking for books about nineteenth and twentieth-century Congregationalists. Why not combine the two? And so every chance I got, grabbing minutes here and there, I scouted a Question: What do you hope people will take little more through our collection. I also realized away from this book? that my book had to come up to the present, up through the long and painful controversy that led Answer: Every author hopes their book will be to formation of the United Church of Christ. We a “good read,” not just for historians but lots of have lots of “merger material” in our collection other people too. But I also wanted bring back to and I decided to bite the bullet and include that life a lot of men and women who we’ve forgotten, story, as painful and difficult as it might be. some of them pretty famous and others ordinary laypeople. These were people like all of us, who got and received nasty letters, maybe felt bored and grouchy during long meetings in hot, stuffy halls,

29 and who tried to be gracious to pests and clueless critics. They were also people who loved what they called the “Congregational Way.” Some invested lifetimes in preserving it.

The United Church of Christ today is not all that different from other mainline denominations, passionate about all kinds of important causes but mostly uninterested in their own history. The past is something to “move beyond” because our ancestors were less enlightened on social issues than we are. I am hoping that this book, like my previous one, The Spiritual Practice of Remembering, will show us what we’ve lost through forgetting and what we gain in remembering. I wrote them together, in fact. The Last Puritans is really a big academic version of the smaller book. I invite you all to read both.

Dr. Kenneth P. Minkema is the Executive Editor of The Works of Jonathan Edwards and of the Jonathan Edwards Center & Online Archive at Yale University. He has edited numerous volumes on Edwards. Currently part of a team that is preparing Cotton Mather’s Biblia Americana for publication, Ken serves as a member of the publishing committee at the Colonial Society and the Advisory Board for the New England Hidden Histories program at the Congregational Library & Archives.

30 Chicago Theological Seminary Collection of Community Renewal Society records The Community Renewal Society of Chicago was founded in 1882 to address the social, educational and economic needs of newly arrived immigrants by Congregationalists who believed in the transforming power of the gospel to right social ills, particularly inhumanity to other races, specifically the injustice of slavery. These photos represent a significant collection of photographs documenting its work.

The Congregational Library & Archives • Boston, Massachusetts

31 Congregational Library & Archives History Matters

14 Beacon Street BoSton, Ma 02108

Discovering the past making history matter Donate to the Congregational Library & Archives www.congregationalibrary.org