Social Gospel In The 19th Century

Social gospel was a movement that sprung up in the late 19th century and early 20th century in the United States in response to social conditions. During this time period, conditions of the industrial revolution and increased immigration led to terrible conditions for the poor (Foner, 2014). In urban areas, poor families were packed into small unsanitary tenements. City slums were filled with disease, over-crowding, and crime. Factory workers, who were often very young children, were forced to work long days in unsafe conditions for very little money (Foner, 2014). Leaders of social gospel sought to address these problems with “practical Christianity” (Martin Luther King, Jr..., 2015). Though the movement was widely criticized as not bringing
(Rauschenbusch, 1907) Among these was Washington Gladden, a pastor and leading member of the progressive movement. Gladden is known as one of the fathers of social gospel in the United States. After viewing a strike of shoe-factory workers in Springfield Massachusetts, Gladden came out strongly pro-union on the labor issue and even wrote a book, Working People and Their Employers, that advocated for workers’ right to unionize. (Bateman, 2015) Other leaders of Social Gospel in the United States include: William Dwight Porter Bliss, a Christian socialist who was concerned with labor reform, Shailer Mathews, dean of University of Chicago’s Divinity School and advocate of social reform, and Walter Rauschenbusch, a pastor, prolific writer, and key thinker of the movement. Rauschenbusch wrote several books that developed the foundations of social gospel. Among these were: Christianity and the Social Crisis, The Social Principles of Jesus, and a Theology for the Social Gospel. Rauschenbusch hoped these writings would help organize a disperse and mostly unstructured
Previously Christians had focused on morality within one’s self and one’s family, but advocates of social gospel argued that it was the Christian duty to address societal immorality and that the social issues of the time were inherently moral issues. (CITATION) Rauschenbusch wrote: “"It is important to note, further that the morality which the prophets had in mind in their strenuous insistence on righteousness was not merely the private morality of the home, but the public morality on which national life is founded" (1907). Rauschenbusch emphasizes the importance of public morality through the example of John the Baptist’s close relationship with Jesus. He states that John’s dedication to social betterment is indicative of his belief that societal immorality was the impediment to the coming of “the Kingdom of God” (Rauschenbusch,