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It has long been recognized that the much loved and widely revered Congregational minister, the Reverend Washington Gladden, pursued a career that embodied the salient features of what was probably the most dynamic period in the history of religion in America. For Gladden was one of the principal actors in those episodes that constitute the often violent but always exhilarating transition from orthodoxy to a more flexible faith based on principles of social justice and service to mankind that took place between the Civil War and World War I. Gladden was one of the first among clergymen to respond to the intellectual and social currents that arose to challenge traditional modes of Protestant thought and social action. By the end of the nineteenth century, when both liberal theology and the Social Gospel had, in a sense, triumphed as the dominant forces in American Protestantism, he had achieved recognition as one of the earliest, most constant, and most influential exponents of both movements. He was, in addition, one of their chief popularizers; and his copious writings--some forty books and hundreds of articles--represent classic examples of the liberal, socially-conscious Protestantism that distinguished his age. Mr. Dorn has provided the first comprehensive study of Gladden's spectacular career. He traces his life and its influences from his birth in Pennsylvania to his long and successful pastorate at the First Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio, where he gained national fame in stormy encounters with such prominent figures as the redoubtable Billy Sunday and his wife "Ma," and for his lucid and vigorous positions on national issues such as the "tainted money" controversy that brought him into conflict with Standard Oil.
This is the first significant book-length biography in over 50 years of Washington Gladden, a minister, journalist, and reformer whose message of religious liberalism came to define modern Protestantism in the United States. Although largely forgotten today, Gladden was one of the most well-known pastors of his time and a leader of the social gospel and progressive movement. Mislin chronicles Gladden’s early years bristling against the culture of a pious small town in upstate New York, his personal and family struggles during the Civil War, and his eventual professional success that came by providing a religious message for a society struggling with skepticism about organized religion, massive economic inequality, rampant corporate malfeasance, and widespread racial and religious bigotry. Through this book, Gladden’s life emerges as both a model for the fusion of progressive political, social, and religious commitments, as well as a cautionary tale of the potential perils for those who critique society from inside elite institutions.
David Mislin focuses on eight defining elements of Gladden's religious thought and explores the crucial moments in his life that shaped his ministry. He weaves together critical analysis of Gladden's ideas with engaging anecdotes that offer insights into the ordinary life and work of a nineteenth-century pastor and the activities of his churches.
A remarkable history of the powerful and influential social gospel movement. The global crises of child labor, alcoholism and poverty were all brought to our attention through the social gospel movement. Its impact on American society makes it one of the most influential developments in American religious history. Christopher H. Evans traces the development of the social gospel in American Protestantism, and illustrates how the religious idealism of the movement also rose up within Judaism and Catholicism. Contrary to the works of previous historians, Evans demonstrates how the presence of the social gospel continued in American culture long after its alleged demise following World War I. Evans reveals the many aspects of the social gospel and their influence on a range of social movements during the twentieth century, culminating with the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. It also explores the relationship between the liberal social gospel of the early twentieth century and later iterations of social reform in late twentieth century evangelicalism. The Social Gospel in American Religion considers an impressive array of historical figures including Washington Gladden, Emil Hirsch, Frances Willard, Reverdy Ransom, Walter Rauschenbusch, Stephen Wise, John Ryan, Harry Emerson Fosdick, A.J. Muste, Georgia Harkness, and Benjamin Mays. It demonstrates how these figures contributed to the shape of the social gospel in America, while arguing that the movement’s legacy lies in its profound influence on broader traditions of liberal-progressive political reform in American history.
This text identifies the indigenous roots of American liberal theology and uncovers a wider, longer-running tradition than has been thought. Taking a narrative approach the text provides a biographical reading of important religious thinkers of the time.
In A Consuming Faith, Susan Curtis analyzes the startling convergence of two events previously treated independently: the emergence of a modern consumer-oriented culture and the rise of the social gospel movement. By examining the lives and works of individuals who identified themselves as social gospelers, rather than just groups or individuals who fit a particular definition, Curtis is able to capture the very fluidity of the term social gospel as it was used. In addition to exploring the time in which the movement took shape, Curtis provides biographical sketches of traditional figures involved in various aspects of the social gospel movement such as Walter Rauschenbusch, Washington Gladden, and Josiah Strong alongside those of less-prominent figures like Charles Jefferson, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Charles Macfarland. Going beyond their roles in the movement, Curtis shows them to be sons and daughters, husbands and wives, and workers and citizens who experienced the vast changes in their world wrought by industrialization and class conflict even as they sought to define a meaningful religious life. The result of their quest was a redefinition of Protestantism that contributed to an evolving public discourse and culture. This groundbreaking study, now with a new preface by Curtis, provides an illuminating look at culture and religion as interdependent influences, and treats religious life as an integral part of American culture--not a sacred world apart from the secular. A Consuming Faith will be of interest to anyone who strives to understand not only the social and cultural history of America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but also the origins of modern America.