The Social Gospel and the Failure of Racial Reform, 1877–1898

1977 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph E. Luker
Keyword(s):  
Race Relations ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Walter Rauschenbusch ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

While American Society was coming apart in the 1960s, an impressive array of historians rallied to condemn what Rayford Logan called “the astigmatism of the social gospel” in race relations. Preoccupied by the ills of urban-industrial disorder, they suggested, the prophets of post-Reconstruction social Christianity either ignored or betrayed the Negro and left his fortunes in the hands of a hostile white South. The indictment of the social gospel on this count hinged upon the racism of Josiah Strong, the faithlessness of Lyman Abbott, and the complicity in silence of Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, and the others.

The Mission to China

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-33
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
Social Christianity ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
The Relationship

American Protestantism determined to a large extent the nature of the mission errand to China, especially in the Chinese Protestant elite’s understanding of social Christianity. American Protestantism, however, suffered from certain weaknesses in its own understanding of the relationship between Christianity and society, and this weakness was most evident in the message of the Social Gospel. The Social Gospel aimed to reshape the modern industrial economy, so that it was more humane to workers and more beneficial to society. That message, though, was compromised in its transmission to China by its association with imperialism. Beyond this message of the Social Gospel, American missions were also the early benefactors of the main institutions—colleges and universities, the YMCA and the YWCA—through which the Protestant elite influenced the larger society.

Dealing with Diversity: Mapping Multiculturalism in Sociological Terms

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Hartmann ◽  
Joseph Gerteis
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

Since the 1960s, a variety of new ways of addressing the challenges of diversity in American society have coalesced around the term “multiculturalism.” In this article, we impose some clarity on the theoretical debates that surround divergent visions of difference. Rethinking multiculturalism from a sociological point of view, we propose a model that distinguishes between the social (associational) and cultural (moral) bases for social cohesion in the context of diversity. The framework allows us to identify three distinct types of multiculturalism and situate them in relation to assimilationism, the traditional American response to difference. We discuss the sociological parameters and characteristics of each of these forms, attending to the strength of social boundaries as well as to the source of social ties. We then use our model to clarify a number of conceptual tensions in the existing scholarly literature and offer some observations about the politics of recognition and redistribution, and the recent revival of assimilationist thought.

Walter Rauschenbusch and Education for Reform

1967 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-469
Author(s):  
John R. Aiken
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Progressive Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Walter Rauschenbusch

While it is true that the social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch is more than the religious strain of the progressive movement, there is no doubt that he sought a christianized social order, one in “harmony with the ethical convictions which we identify with Christ.” And he was much concerned with the Kingdom of God, the “growing perfection in the collective life of humanity, in our laws, in the customs of society, in the institutions for education, and of the administration of mercy.”

Modernizing Decency

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitney Strub
Keyword(s):  
Christian Right ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

Charles Keating, an ambitious young Cincinnati lawyer, founded Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL) in 1955. Though the social origins of CDL were rooted in Cincinnati’s conservative Catholic politics, Keating was able to recast antipornography politics for a national audience. CDL despised the influx of pornography washing over American society in the 1960s. This emphatic proclamation bespoke a comfort with modernity jarringly at odds with midcentury public perceptions of antismut activists—a very productive modernism that CDL harnessed to great effect over the course of the late 1950s and 1960s. Even as CDL pioneered new discursive formations, which often emanated directly out of obsolete earlier movements, it adopted the tropes and trappings of evolving social mores to reposition activism against obscenity and pornography not as retrograde but rather as an integral part of red-blooded, decent American citizenship. While the group faded from view during the 1970s, CDL set an important precedent for conservative groups in forwarding a sexually conservative, religiously motivated politics through modern, secular language. It also provided a model for future religious efforts at mainstreaming activism, such as the antiabortion movement, over a decade before abortion became a fulcrum for the hybrid movement known as the religious (or Christian) right.

The Fear of Cultural Decline: Josiah Strong's Thought about Reform and Expansion

1973 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Gospel ◽  
The Social ◽  
Early Leader ◽  
American Society

Congregational minister and onetime home missionary Josiah Strong (1847–1916) is perhaps best known for his militant advocacy of American expansion. He was also, however, an early leader of the Social Gospel movement who urged the reform of society to cope with the problems of an industrial era. Throughout the thirty-year period during which Strong set forth his views in print (1885–1915) expansion and reform were important themes in his thought, although significant changes appeared in his treatment of both; this was symptomatic of a basic attitudinal shift toward American society.

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