Useful links

CBC radio archives of 1985 on the social gospel

Social gospel from the Canadian Encyclopedia

Social gospel from the Mennonite Encyclopedia

Social gospel, women's rights, and the Famous 5, from Canada's "Digital Collections"

The growth of the social gospel, mainly American, from Terry Matthews, an adjunct professor at Wake Forest University

A full history of Canadian sociology from Paul Gingrich of the department of sociology at the University of Regina notes the influence of the social gospel

Print bibliography

Phyllis D. Airhart and Roger C. Hutchinson ed., Christianizing the Social Order: A Founding Vision of the United Church of Canada (Special Issue of Toronto Journal of Theology 12/2 (1996)

Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-28

Richard Allen ed., The Social Gospel in Canada (includes autobiographical accounts of major social gospellers)

Salem Bland, The New Christianity

Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, A Full-Orbed Christianity: The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900-1940

Ramsay Cook, The Regenerators

Brian J. Fraser, The Social Uplifters: Presbyterian Progressives and the Social Gospel in Canada,1875-1915

Brian J. Fraser, "Theology and the Social Gospel among Canadian Presbyterians: A Case Study," Studies in Religion 9 (1979):35-46

T. B. Kilpatrick and J.G. Shearer, The Kootenay Campaign: Evangelism and Moral Reform

David Marshall, Secularizing the Faith

A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries: The Western Canada Radical Movement, 1899-1919

Edward Pulker, We Stand on Their Shoulders: The Growth of Social Concern in Canadian Anglicanism

Marianne Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1914

J. S. Woodsworth, My Neighbor

J.S. Woodsworth, Following the Gleam: A Pilgrim's Progress to Date

THE SOCIAL GOSPEL NOVEL
Grier Nicholl, "The Christian Social Novel and Social Gospel Evangelism," Religion in
Life 34 (1965): 548-61

Susan H. Lindley, "Women and the Social Gospel Novel," Church History 54 (1985):
56-73 (on American novels)

Paul S. Boyer, "In His Steps: A Reappraisal," American Quarterly 23 (1971) (on an influential American social gospel novel

Mary Vipond, "Blessed Are the Peacemakers: The Labour Question in Canadian Social Gospel Fiction," in Journal of Canadian Studies 10/3 (1975): 32-43

R.R.Warne, Literature as Pulpit: The Christian Social Activism of Nellie McClung

The United Church report of 1934

The United Church of Canada was influenced in its early years by the same progressive religious outlook that inspired the social gospel movement. Over the years its Board of Evangelism and Social Service issued a number of documents that reflected progressive values. This week's assigned readings includes one of its most important reports. The question of how to translate Christian responsibility into public influence was assigned to the Commission on Christianizing the Social Order that reported to the General Council in 1934.

The commission was chaired by Sir Robert Falconer, who was recently retired from the presidency of the University of Toronto (pictured right). Falconer was an interesting choice for the job. A Presbyterian before 1925, he had been a stalwart supporter of church union. But he was not a social gospel sympathizer. In "Religion on My Life's Road," an autobiographical essay published a few years after the Commission completed its work (1938), he dismissed the movement as the work of "impatient members" of Protestant churches who felt threatened by "what seems to be a loss of moral authority."

It's interesting to compare the underlying assumptions of the 1934 report to Falconer's frank assessment of the social role of the churches in "Religion on My Life's Road." His appraisal of their political influence was blunt: national leaders did not consult church leaders in times of social difficulty-and with good reason in his opinion:

The advice given by churches and by good Christians is often of little value, because it is not determined on sufficiently broad understanding of what is feasible.

To expect otherwise was to misunderstand the task of the church, which was

not intended to be another earthly kingdom legislating for the social and political welfare of even its own members, to say nothing of the multitudes who would never acknowledge its authority.

But the church's more modest role was nonetheless important; rather than dictate or even prescribe solutions it was to educate and enlighten its members in an effort to "release [their] moral energies." Its task was to cooperate with the home in producing educated Christians whose "fundamental convictions and intelligence" would guide them in "active citizenship."

Questions on Document 10

To what extent are Falconer's views about Christian responsibility and "active citizenship" reflected in the report of the commission he chaired? How do those who submitted the minority report differ in their understanding of the task of the church?

In what ways do the principles and recommendations of the report of the Commission on Christianizing the Social Order reflect continuity with/readjustment of the "moral regulation" of the Victorian period?

What are the pastoral implications of the positions taken by the commission?

How does the view of church and society in this document differ from contemporary assumptions about the relationship between church and society?

International missions

The Board of Evangelism and Social Service was not alone in calling for the social order to be "christianized" — a theme that has since come to be associated almost exclusively with a social gospel agenda. Joining those who were fighting moral crusades at home was a group with more voices, deeper pockets, and an unmistakable affinity with the evangelical impulse of the past: the missionary movement. The United Church's commitment to the missionary enterprise strengthened its ties to international ecumenism and created a hospitable climate for an internationalist outlook that remained even after its religious features were obscured.

The United Church of Canada's involvement in the global expansion of Christianity in the twentieth century is easily overlooked or dismissed. The "evangelization of the world in this generation," the so-called "watchword" of the missionary movement at the beginning of the century, has since come to be identified with an approach to dealing with other religions and cultures that we assume was considered suspect by more "progressive" leaders of the day. Not so for those in the United Church, at least according to former Methodist Jesse Arnup, appointed as Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Church of Canada at the time of its founding in 1925. In chapter 5 of A New Church Faces a New World he recalls that there was "abundant evidence that a world vision and a world purpose" was shared by the founders of the United Church: "its ultimate objective was always set down as the evangelization of the world." He describes the United Church's plans for outreach in ambitious terms: "Of set purpose it aims to make Canada wholly Christian; but its ultimate objective is nothing less than the fulfillment of God's purpose for the whole world."

Writing in 1937, Arnup feared that the high hopes of the early twentieth century were all too quickly being displaced by disillusionment. The world seemed to be falling apart. The missionary enterprise was in jeopardy-and so too was the future of the church. The assigned reading from Arnup's book (chapter 7) warns of the danger he sees if the church is robbed of "its missionary purpose and passion."

Questions on Document 11

What role does Arnup see for the international Christian church as it faces the escalating world crisis? What is his understanding of his own church's mission? How did the crisis facing the missionary movement in the interwar years affect the work of the missionaries serving the serving the church during and after this period? What are Katharine Hockin's assumptions about cultural dominance and religious pluralism at the various stages of her life as she presents it in the assigned reading?