An Analysis Of The Social Gospel Movement Of America(1873-1908)

This paper, utilizing the theology of historical materialism, using research achievementsof scholars home and abroad and a great quantity English datum, integrating knowledge ofhistory, economics, theology and so on, investigates the Social Gospel Movement and itstheology thinking late19thand early20thin detail.There are five parts in this article. The foreword states the research value and realisticmeaning, introducing the status quo of this research in summary, pointing out that academicrealm at home didn’t value this issue enough and there lack introduction detailed, so I canstudy this problem. Besides, this part defines the conceptions involved in this paper.The fist chapter explains the background of the Social Gospel Movement. After the civilwar, American capitalism developed so fast that there appeared a lot of social problems:working class and the masses at the bottom couldn’t make their lives, diseases and crimespread in the slum, Polarization, city boss controlled the politics, political corruption and soon. As a result, the masses especially the poor lost confidence in the Christianity whichfocused on individual salvation, and then estranged with the church. And so, protestant churchfaced serious situation. On the other hand, before the rise of the Social Gospel Movement,there were four theological thoughts in America, the orthodox Protestantism, thoseenlightened conservatives, evangelical hope and fervor, and Unitarian. The last three thoughtswere all beneficial for the rise of the Social Gospel Movement. The second chapter explainsthe sign of the rise of the Social Gospel Movement, Evangelical Alliance, and some activitiesin the early period. In this chapter, it introduces two problems that the social gospeler mostconcerned in detail, the labor institution and socialism. Then it also introduces the theologicalthoughts of the Social Gospel Movement in summary. The third chapter analyzes the effect ofthe movement and its limitation. The conclusion summarizes the movement and evaluates itbriefly.This part also points out the vast space for research in this area.