Dale E. Soden. The Reverend Mark Matthews: An Activist in the Progressive Era. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001. xvi + 274 pp. $30.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-295-98021-8.

Reviewed by Margaret Bendroth

Published on H-SHGAPE (December, 2002)

Pistol-Packing Parson: Mark Matthews and talists Win?" Although Soden emphasizes Protestant Culture in the Pacifc Northwest Matthews's more moderate, bridge-building Once a staple of pious literature, biographies stance as the confict wound down to its unhappy of famous clergymen are not exactly jumping of conclusion in the late 1920s, the latter has been the shelves these days. But Dale Soden's story of most frequently remembered as a confrontational Seattle pastor Mark Matthews suggests some good champion of fundamentalist orthodoxy. reasons for giving the genre a second look. Of course, like many fundamentalist leaders, Though the public career of this alternately Matthews's identifcation with the movement was cranky, idealistic, conniving, and fearless Presby‐ as much a matter of personal style as it was par‐ terian might not necessarily edify the faithful, it ticular belief. Though never a central fgure in the does illuminate some important aspects of Ameri‐ national cause, the Seattle pastor was clearly an can society during a complex period of spiritual adept and enthusiastic polarizer on his home turf. transition. With his long, fowing hair and six-and-a-half-foot Matthews is probably best known for his key frame, he certainly cut a dramatic fgure. An ear‐ role in the fundamentalist-modernist confict ly, admiring biography in fact defended Matthews within the northern Presbyterian church. As mod‐ from charges that he was "efeminate," an impres‐ erator of the General Assembly in 1913, he headed sion created by his "meticulous formal dress," an investigation of Union Seminary's orthodoxy "long, curly locks," and "small, refned features." and came back with a critical report urging the Noting that Matthews kept a pair of pearl-handed denomination "Back to Fundamentals." In the pistols in his ofce desk, the authors of the early mid-1920s Matthews was deeply embroiled in the biography commented brusquely that this "pistol- efort to silence Harry Emerson Fosdick, the liber‐ packing parson" was an authentic western "He- al Baptist leader who riled the General Assembly Man".[1] Soden does not gloss over Matthews's with a provocative address, "Shall the Fundamen‐ less attractive qualities, allowing that he was of‐ H-Net Reviews ten egotistical, irascible, and disturbingly eager southern background translated into a more mod‐ for public attention. He relates how, from time to erate role in the midst of institutional controver‐ time, Matthews would manipulate his congrega‐ sy. Massee, a northern Baptist, operated much as tion, informing them of job ofers from the pulpit Matthews did among northern Presbyterians, re‐ and all but forcing them to come up with a com‐ fusing to accept the separatist logic of his more petitive salary on the spot. At best paternalistic to‐ militant colleagues, and earning a healthy share ward African-Americans, Matthews was openly of criticism as a result. All of this invites question‐ opposed to woman sufrage and contemptuous of ing of the standard conclusion that fundamental‐ the movement to ordain women as elders in the ism was basically a Yankee phenomenon, only re‐ Presbyterian church. By the end of the book, his cently accepted by the conservative wing of the personal piety is in fact fairly open to question: Southern Baptist Convention. there is little evidence that Matthews ever prayed It is also true, however, that most of these or, if he did, believed he had received a heavenly men came into their own in the hardball political answer. climate of the urban north. Norris, who simulta‐ Yet Soden's portrait of Matthews amounts to neously pastored churches in Fort Worth and De‐ far more than just an eccentric portrait of a local‐ troit, kept a pistol in his desk and used it to kill an ly famous pastor. To begin with, it adds to a rela‐ opponent in 1926. Riley established his Minneapo‐ tively small but noteworthy literature of funda‐ lis pulpit as a power base from which he dominat‐ mentalist biography, beginning with C. Allyn Rus‐ ed Baptist institutions across the upper midwest. sell's engaging set of portraits, Voices of American Straton regularly conducted high-profle tours of Fundamentalism: Seven Biographical Studies New York's red light districts. Matthews probably (Westminster Press, 1976). Since then, William outdid them all. In a pitched battle against Seattle Vance Trollinger's biography of Baptist politician Hiram Gill and police chief Charles William Bell Riley, Barry Hankin's study of Texas Wappenstein, the Presbyterian divine employed Baptist J. Frank Norris, and D. G. Hart's work on J. every possible means at his disposal, including Gresham Machen have provided compelling, some that were devious and others that were, at though sometimes idiosyncratic, perspectives on least, borderline illegal. In 1910, Matthews secret‐ American fundamentalism.[2] ly borrowed money from some of his insurance The composite picture is worth exploring. All policies and hired the William Burns Agency to in‐ four men, for example, were southerners by birth vestigate Wappenstein and a number of his politi‐ or upbringing--a list that could also include a cal cronies. In 1916 the Seattle pastor fnanced a number of other infuential fundamentalists, such phony gambling ring to uncover police corrup‐ as and J. C. Massee. This is not tion. Given these examples, and many more that "new news" to scholars of fundamentalism, might easily be added, it is a wonder that funda‐ though a more regionally-sensitive analysis of the mentalism has been stereotyped so often as a movement might open up some interesting lines prim rejection of American urban society: of inquiry. In the case of many fundamentalist Matthews and many of his colleagues were happi‐ leaders, for instance, "Southern" did not necessar‐ ly up to their elbows in it. They not only "coped" ily equal "conservative." Matthews and Norris with urbanization, they triumphantly mastered both seemed to absorb a great deal of radical so‐ some of its roughest features. cial language from the infuence of southern Pop‐ What is most instructive about Soden's biog‐ ulism in their early years. For others, such as J. C. raphy is the decision to frame Matthews's incipi‐ Massee and, to a degree, Matthews himself, a ent fundamentalism within his more signifcant

2 H-Net Reviews career as an urban political reformer and contro‐ tion that a personal conversion experience was versialist. Soden, I think rightly, depicts Matthews the absolute requirement for salvation. There are as a political activist who was, for a time, attract‐ few categories that do his career any kind of jus‐ ed to the fundamentalist movement--not a funda‐ tice. Indeed, from what Soden tells us, if Matthews mentalist who opportunistically dabbled in poli‐ were alive today, likely he would fnd some of the tics. Like many late-Victorian evangelicals, more liberal Protestant denominations more to Matthews espoused an ideal of the city as a "right‐ his liking than the conservative evangelical cul‐ eous kingdom," free of vice, poverty, and exploita‐ ture he helped form. tion, and he regularly employed his church as a All of this suggests a story more complex than "bully pulpit" for a wide range of social causes. Matthews's life alone can possibly reveal. I found What perhaps set him apart from the rest was his myself wondering a great deal about the makeup endless, almost profigate supply of ideas for new of Seattle's First Presbyterian Church, at one time projects. There could not have been a board of di‐ the largest congregation in the country. Though rectors or planning committee in turn-of-the-cen‐ Matthews was without doubt an autocratic pastor, tury Seattle without Matthews's name on it. To the dynamics of First Presbyterian's congregation‐ name just a few examples, Matthews was presi‐ al life must have shaped his vision somehow. I dent of the King County Red Cross and the local suspect that the church's membership records Humane Society, served on the Seattle Day Care contain a wealth of social data that would reveal a Nursery Board and the Seattle Milk Commission, great deal about the kinds of people who were at‐ spearheaded a drive for Italian earthquake relief tracted to Matthews's message. Were they, for ex‐ in 1909, and helped form the Municipal Owner‐ ample, as "middle-class" as Soden assumes they ship League, an organization devoted to public were? Did they vote? And how many of them ownership of the city's streetcars. After World were newcomers to Seattle, drawn from an ambi‐ War I Matthews's social optimism markedly di‐ tious, young, boardinghouse population? Was minished, but clearly for most of his career, his First Presbyterian a "neighborhood" church, or passions were far more political than theological. did most of its members commute in from the Soden's biography of Matthews therefore in‐ suburbs? What were its neighborhood like? In vites deeper questions of social and religious con‐ short, Matthews's career raises a host of questions text. Right away, the Seattle pastor's career sug‐ regarding social history, that are not necessarily gests that easy dualistic categories do not begin to difcult to research, about the role and identity of describe the religious culture of turn-of-the-centu‐ conservative Protestantism in turn-of-the-century ry cities. No one seemed to mind that Matthews Seattle, and other similar cities. Not every high- took up a wide variety of stereotypically "liberal" profle leader has such a clearly defned con‐ and "conservative" causes. He opposed women's stituency; if anything, ministerial biographies pro‐ sufrage but championed municipal ownership of vide a unique opportunity to compare messages streetcars and consumer protection legislation. "If against social programs, to observe membership there is a hydra-headed curse in this country," he in a cause which is growing and changing over once declared, "its name is breakfast food" (p. time. 100). He supported the Wobblies against persecu‐ Finally, Matthews's story raises questions tion in 1912 and was a friend and confdant of about the regional dynamics of American reli‐ Woodrow Wilson. Though engaged in an endless gious history. It is not too hard to fgure out, for variety of schemes for earthly reform, Matthews example, that being a "liberal" in Boston is not the hosted a citywide revival led by J. Wilbur Chap‐ same as being one in Grand Rapids, Michigan--nor man in 1905, testifying to his rock-bottom convic‐

3 H-Net Reviews for that matter, is being an "evangelical." Certain‐ ly the stakes for conservative Protestants were diferent in the relatively open market of Seattle than they were in Boston, a city with a Catholic majority as well as three centuries of religious in‐ stitution-building under its belt. Not surprisingly, anti-Catholicism and fercely competitive territo‐ rial politics played a large role in turn-of-the-cen‐ tury fundamentalist institution-building in Bos‐ ton, and, I imagine, other east coast cities as well. But what did it mean to be alienated in Seattle? It seems entirely possible that Protestants might imagine "urban righteousness" along diferent lines when their city streets are not yet crowded with ancient and bitter memories. Though it is relatively moribund in the Pacifc Northwest and urban Northeast today, a hundred years ago con‐ servative white Protestantism was a broad and capacious framework that housed groups of peo‐ ple in disparate parts of the country: Seattle, Bos‐ ton, , Detroit, and San Antonio. But saying that fundamentalism was a "national" movement only tells one small piece of what has to be a complex and fascinating story. Notes [1]. Ezra P. Giboney and Agnes M. Potter, The Life of Mark A. Matthews (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1948), pp. 94-95. [2]. William Vance Trollinger, God's Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamental‐ ism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990); Barry Hankins, God's Rascal: J. Frank Nor‐ ris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamental‐ ism (Lexington: University Press of , 1996); and D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gre‐ sham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).

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Citation: Margaret Bendroth. Review of Soden, Dale E. The Reverend Mark Matthews: An Activist in the Progressive Era. H-SHGAPE, H-Net Reviews. December, 2002.

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