Compare and Contrast of Social Darwinism and Social Gospel

REPORT: SEWARD'S PROPOSAL
c. Compare and contrast the ideologies of social Darwinism and Social Gospel.
The Ideologies of both Social Darwinism and Social Gospel was a form of justification that was adopted by many American businessmen as scientific proof of their superiority. Social Darwinism was created by using the applications of the English naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin’s scientific theories of evolution and natural selection, ‘the survival of the fittest’. Herbert Spencer applied the Darwinian Theory to human development and William Graham Sumner thought that the economy was a natural event and did not need any guidance in its evolution; Sumer’s views greatly contrasted the beliefs of the Social Gospel.
The Social Gospel was used in general protestant clergymen that objected the harsher realities of the late 1800s and 1900s. It was a liberal movement within the American Protestantism that applied to biblical teachings and Christian ethics to industrialization/ social problems. Social Gospel taught its followers that it is a person’s duty to help others in need, not just a preparation for an afterlife. Followers of social gospel tended to push for political reforms, while followers of social Darwinism disapproved of anything that the government did to help protect the weak; almost like a competition were there are winners and losers. While with social gospel, it was more of a collaborative venue.
For Social Darwinism, wealth, social status and property showed a person’s fitness to survive, which appealed to the work ethic of Protestants of ‘anyone could prosper with hard work, intelligence and perseverance’. Darwinists thought that poor people were lazy, inferior and unfit to survive. Social Gospel was a moral reform movement that was promoted by protestant clergy like Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden. This belief addressed the excesses of industrialization and urbanization and preached salvation through work for social justice; it also influenced the progression of reformer such as Jane Addams and Theodore Roosevelt
Comparing both Social Darwinism and Social Gospel, they both addressed the urban and industrial society of the 19th century and explained the situation of the poor and why they thought the poor were as they were. They had some connection to protestant ethics or religion and was opposed by fundamentalists like Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, whom preached the literal interpretation of the Bible and individual salvation.