Protestantism in the Gilded
Age and Progressive Era
Religion in America
The Gilded Age
•
Protestantism loses much self-confidence
•
Rise of agnosticism
– Effect
of war and Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859)
– Robert
G. Ingersoll, Union veteran, popular speaker & writer
– Heyday
of Free Thinkers
Rise of Liberal
Protestantism
•
Congregational Rev. Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture,
1847
•
Antebellum reform movements: Congregationalists, Presbyterians,
Quakers
– Sabbatarianism
– Temperance
– Abolitionism
– Women’s
rights
•
Acceptance of modern science and Bible criticism
•
Immanent and loving God
•
Focus on the Christian life
– De-emphasis
on sin & hell
– Attack
social causes of sin
•
Postmillennialism: Kingdom Theology
Rising cities &
industrial capitalism
The question of the labor
movement
•
Railroad strike of 1877
– Police,
militias, and army fire on workers, who respond with violence
– 100
die and $100 million in damage
•
Labor violence for next 25 years
– 1880-1900:
6.6 million workers in 23,000 strikes
•
Huge wave of immigrants, mostly non-Protestants
– Poles,
Italians, Russian Jews, Eastern Europeans, Canadians
•
Class war? Socialism? Communism?
Christian Response
•
Millionaires and working classes
– Andrew
Carnegie and the “Gospel of Wealth”
•
Evangelizing the working class
– The
Y.M.C.A. & Salvation Army
– Businessmen
fund Dwight Moody
– From salesman to
evangelist
– Singer Ira Sankey
– Simple Bible message
– Moody Bible
Institute & Northfield Seminary
Congregationalists:
godly community
•
Landscape architecture and the City Beautiful movement
•
From commons to parks
– New
York City’s Central Park, 1858
– Yosemite,
1864
– Yellowstone
National Park, 1872
•
Conservation, forestry, sustainable agriculture
•
Katharine Lee Bates
– “America
the Beautiful,” 1893
O beautiful for spacious
skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
The Social Gospel
•
Congregational Rev. Washington Gladden, Applied Christianity, 1887
•
Congregational Rev. Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps, 1896
•
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, 1907
Living the Social Gospel
•
The settlement house movement
– Jane
Addams & Hull House, Chicago, 1889
•
Ministering to the lower classes
– Missions
and aid to immigrants and workers
Progressive Presbyterians:
restrain greed, ensure fairness
•
Grover Cleveland & Benjamin Harrison, 1885-1897
•
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
– Progressive
Party, 1912
– “Confession of
Faith”
– “Onward, Christian
Soldiers”
– “We stand at
Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.”
•
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
•
Regulated business and banking
•
Protected labor
•
Set up the National Parks and National Forests systems
•
Promoted conservation