Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago
Heath W. Carter
Abstract
This book argues that social Christianity was “union made”—and in at least two crucial senses. The first pertains to the history of ideas. Throughout the Gilded Age, the clergy largely failed to muster a critical analysis of the nation’s changing economic life. As vehemently as conservatives and liberals disagreed on matters of biblical interpretation, they were often of one mind on “the labor question,” attributing the vast disparities of wealth in their midst to the poor’s individual failings. Countless working people begged to differ and their communities proved hotbeds of theological innov ... More
This book argues that social Christianity was “union made”—and in at least two crucial senses. The first pertains to the history of ideas. Throughout the Gilded Age, the clergy largely failed to muster a critical analysis of the nation’s changing economic life. As vehemently as conservatives and liberals disagreed on matters of biblical interpretation, they were often of one mind on “the labor question,” attributing the vast disparities of wealth in their midst to the poor’s individual failings. Countless working people begged to differ and their communities proved hotbeds of theological innovation. Wage earners fashioned the words of scripture into searing critiques of both industrial capitalism and the churches that so readily accommodated it. In addition to being “lived,” their religion was thought; and this book is in part an exploration of their intellectual history. It is also more than that, for workers did not sit back on their theological laurels, but rather threw themselves into the politics of church. In Chicago and across the country, they consistently threatened to leave the fold unless the churches warmed to labor. Workers backed these threats with concerted resistance to “scab ministers,” generating clashes that, especially when picked up by the press, only intensified clerical anxieties. In the first decade of the twentieth century, denomination after denomination responded to these pressures by articulating newfound support for labor. As they did, there could be no doubt that the social gospel was ascendant—and that it had emerged from below.
Keywords:
social Christianity,
social gospel,
workers,
industrial capitalism,
religion,
labor,
Chicago
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199385959 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199385959.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Heath W. Carter, author
Assistant Professor of History, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
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