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Religion in the Gilded Age. Fundamentalism and the Social Gospel. Two Distinct Movements.
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Religion in the Gilded Age Fundamentalism and the Social Gospel
Two Distinct Movements • American Fundamentalism and the Social Gospel are two distinct religious movements. Both began in the early part of the 20th century. Both sprang from Christianity's attempt to deal with modern problems. Yet they had radically different goals.
Social Gospel • The Social Gospel grew out of the abuses of industrialism. By the turn of the twentieth century American cities had become magnets for cheap labor. Poverty bred a new kind of hopelessness.
Indifference • Wealthy captains of industry, like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, were seen as indifferent to the sufferings of the poor.
Social Darwinism • Some of the rich were philanthropists, but others justified their cruelty with a philosophy called Social Darwinism. If evolution favors the survival of the fittest, they argued, why should the strong help the weak to survive?
Kingdom of God • The Social Gospel arose to combat this bleak landscape. Many Christians came to believe that through reform efforts dealing with child labor, slums and tenement houses, and unsafe working conditions, they could build the Kingdom of God on earth.
Weeding • To counter the argument of the Social Darwinists, William Jennings Bryan compared society to a garden. In a garden, you don't let the weeds triumph over the roses simply because the weeds are stronger.
Protect the Roses • You protect the roses from the weeds. And if you want a society where you have good people, kindness, charity, and equality, you have to do some weeding.
Fundamentalism • Fundamentalism arose from a radically different impulse than the social gospel. Early in the 20th century certain prominent Christians began to see the Bible as a historical text rather than revealed truth.
Higher Criticism • The Bible, according to these “higher critics,” had evolved over time and simply reflected the views of the men who wrote it.
The Fundamentals • Fundamentalism arose within the church to combat this modern view of the Bible. The name comes from a series of pamphlets called “The Fundamentals,” published in 1912.
“The Fundamentals” outlined the bedrock truths that all Christians should believe. Fundamentalists believed in a “back to basics” American theology: The Bible was not something to be interpreted, but the revealed word of God. Fundamentals Inerrancy of the Bible Biblical Literalism Virgin Birth of Christ Substitutionary Atonement Bodily Resurrection Second Coming Back to Basics
Anti-Evolution Crusade • In the beginning, fundamentalism did not attempt to reach out and change society as a whole. It was the anti-evolution crusade of William Jennings Bryan that turned fundamentalism into a political movement.
Tennessee • Beginning in 1922 Bryan campaigned across America for laws against the teaching of Darwin's theory. His crusade lit a fire in the state of Tennessee, which passed a law outlawing the teaching of evolution early in 1925.
John Scopes • When John Scopes was arrested for violating the law, the World's Christian Fundamentals Organization invited William Jennings Bryan to go to Dayton, Tennessee, to prosecute Scopes. Bryan jumped at the chance.
H. L Mencken • The Scopes Trial forever changed Fundamentalism in America. The national media, led by H. L. Mencken, mocked Bryan and his “Bible belt” followers.
Bryan the Charlatan • Mencken called Bryan a charlatan with a particular genius for manipulating the “yokels” who worshipped him.
Reports from Dayton • Mencken's reports from Dayton influenced historian's depictions of Bryan, the Scopes trial, and Fundamentalism itself for years afterwards.
Clarence Darrow • One of the false assumptions of the Scopes Trial was that the American Civil Liberties Union could send a smart lawyer from Chicago, Clarence Darrow, and by embarrassing Bryan, discredit an entire movement.
Disappeared • Historians writing in the late 50s and early 60s thought that Fundamentalism had disappeared from American culture.
Underground • But the Fundamentalist movement had only gone underground. Its leaders had learned valuable lessons from the Scopes trial. Fundamentalism would emerge later in the 20th century as a far more radical and sophisticated movement.
Charitable Works • As for the Social Gospel, the phrase is no longer in currency, but the impulse continues in the charitable works of religious people throughout America.
