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The Social Gospel, Ecumenical Movement, and Christian Sociology: The Institute of Social and Religious Research

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Abstract

Histories of American sociology generally acknowledge, to varying degrees, Christian involvement in the development of the field. Much of this attention, however, underemphasizes two highly influential movements in early-twentieth-century Christian thought, the social gospel movement (1870s–1920s) and the rise of the global ecumenical movement (beginning in 1910). One under-researched, yet particularly revealing example of the impact of these movements is the Institute of Social and Religious Research (“the Institute”; 1921–1934), founded in 1921 under the leadership of global Christian leader John R. Mott and funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The Institute was comprised of Christian social scientific researchers who promoted interdenominational cooperation by engaging in scientific inquiry regarding the structure, current status, and functions of religious institutions and life in the Untied States. The Institute strived to maintain a high level of academic rigor while also retaining a religious motivation that included service to others, a classic struggle in the early history of American sociology.

The publications produced by the Institute were groundbreaking in their applications of social scientific methods to the study of religion in the United States, most notable of which included Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd’s highly generative and controversial Middletown study. In an overview of the largely unexplored tenure of the Institute, this paper brings together important trends in the early twentieth century to provide a unique perspective on the historical and theological contexts for the development of American sociology as an academic discipline.

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Notes

  1. Several scholars have traced the connection between the social gospel movement, Christian sociology, and the rise of American academic sociology. See Joyce E. Williams and Vicky M. Maclean, “In Search of the Kingdom: The Social Gospel, Settlement Sociology, and the Science of Reform in America’s Progressive Era,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 48:4 (Fall 2012): 339–362; Susan E. Henking, “Protestant Religious Experience and the Rise of American Sociology: Evidence from the Bernard Papers,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 28 (October 1992): 325–339; John H. Evans and Michael S. Evans, “Sociology and Christianity,” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, ed. J. B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 344–355.

  2. See Christian Smith, et al., “Roundtable on the Sociology of Religion: Twenty-Three Theses on the Status of Religion in American Sociology—A Mellon Working-Group Reflection.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81:4 (2013): 903–938. Christian Smith and colleagues offer a series of theses regarding the relationship between religion and American sociology, reflecting on whether or not the discipline takes religion seriously. The first thesis highlights the complicated relationship American sociology has had with religion from its inception, with the marginalization of Protestant voices that used sociology to support particular social visions in light of the rise of university-based sociology.

  3. Cecil E. Greek, The Religious Roots of American Sociology (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992), 21.

  4. Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917), 1.

  5. Ibid., 118, 122. In an earlier text, in a departure from previous generations’ theological leanings, Rauschenbusch stated that individual salvation alone was not capable of transforming society. He interpreted the kingdom of God as a matter of transforming life on earth, not saving human souls for heaven. See Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 65.

  6. Greek, Religious Roots, 54.

  7. Willem A. Visser ‘t Hooft, The Background of the Social Gospel in America (St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1963), 162.

  8. Kenneth Scott Latourette, “Ecumenical Bearings of the Missionary Movement and the International Missionary Council,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1968, vol. 1, 1517–1948, ed. Ruth Rouse and Stephen C. Neill, 4th ed. (London: SPCK, 1993), 401–402.

  9. Ibid., 354–355.

  10. The first World Conference on Faith and Order was held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1927, and was attended by Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. The purpose was to bring churches out of isolation and encourage them to understand their similarities and differences. See Herbert N. Bate, ed., Faith and Order: Proceedings of the World Conference, Lausanne, August 3–21, 1927 (London: George H. Doran Company, 1928), 2. The Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1925, presided by Archbishop Nathan Söderblom of the Church of Sweden. The thrust of the meeting was that the unity of the churches found expression in working together to meet the pressing needs of a rapidly changing society, considering advances in modern science and technology, urbanization, increased power of the state, and the tragedy of World War I. See G. K. A. Bell, ed., The Stockholm Conference 1925: The Official Report of the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work Held in Stockholm, 19–30 August, 1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926).

  11. Nils Karlström, “Movements for International Friendship and Life and Work, 1910–1925,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1968, vol. 1, 1517–1948, ed. Ruth Rouse and Stephen C. Neill, 4th ed. (London: SPCK, 1993), 540. The Faith and Order and Life and Work movements were both integral in the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948.

  12. Jeffrey K. Hadden, “H. Paul Douglass: His Perspective and His Work,” Review of Religious Research 22:1 (September 1980): 74. It would be difficult to imagine that Douglass was not familiar with H. Richard Niebuhr’s important study on American Christianity, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: World Publishing, 1929). Niebuhr addresses the fracturing of American Christianity by social class and race. In the last chapter he offers a scathing criticism of the church for propagating divisions in society and suggestions for moving forward in Christian unity.

  13. Hadden, “H. Paul Douglass,” 75.

  14. Ibid.

  15. H. Paul Douglass, Protestant Cooperation in American Cities (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1930), vii.

  16. See H. Paul Douglass, Church Comity: A Study of Coöperative Church Extension in American Cities (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1929); Protestant Cooperation in American Cities; and Church Unity Movements in the United States (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1934).

  17. John P. Drysdale and Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, “The History of Sociology: The North American Perspective,” in 21st Century Sociology: A Reference Handbook, vol. 1, Traditional and Core Areas, eds. Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2006), 28.

  18. Robert C. Bannister, Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 1880–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1897), 37. Small is known for his contributions to the field of sociology in general, but more specifically he has a legacy as being one of the fiercest advocates for the development and legitimization of American sociology. See Harry Elmer Barnes, “Albion Woodbury Small: Promoter of American Sociology and Expositor of Social Interests,” in An Introduction to the History of Sociology, ed. Harry Elmer Barnes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 788.

  19. Lester Frank Ward, Glimpses of the Cosmos: A Mental Autobiography (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1918), 144.

  20. Lester Frank Ward, “The Establishment of Sociology,” Address of the President of the American Sociological Society at its first Annual Meeting. Providence, RI, December 27–29, 1906.

  21. L. L. Bernard and Jessie Bernard, Origins of American Sociology: The Social Science Movement in the United States (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1943), 505. None of the four “founding fathers” of American sociology had originally prepared for academic careers. Sumner and Small had theological training, Giddings in journalism, and Ward in governmental paleobotany. See Stephen Park Turner and Jonathan H. Turner, The Impossible Science: An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1990), 13.

  22. See Visser ‘t Hooft, Social Gospel in America, 147–149.

  23. Greek, Religious Roots, 75. See also Bernard and Bernard, Origins, 783–806, 842. The dependency on statistics is a result of the influence of sociological thought stemming from Columbia University, as opposed to the University of Chicago (the two major players of university-based sociology at the time). The New York-based Institute of Social and Religious Research is a product of the quantitative sociology of the Columbia school.

  24. Greek, Religious Roots, 52.

  25. Bannister, Sociology and Scientism, 38.

  26. Greek, Religious Roots, 106.

  27. Bannister, Sociology and Scientism, 18.

  28. Jane Addams (1860–1935), co-founder of the Hull House in Chicago, worked tirelessly for the rights of immigrants and children and fought for social, political, and economic reform. Women who worked at the Hull House under Addams had systematically collected social scientific data about Chicago long before the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago. See Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, A Full-Orbed Christianity: The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), 262. Addams published numerous articles in the American Journal of Sociology and was a charter member of the American Sociological Society. See Mary Jo Deegan, ed. Women in Sociology: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 37–44. Despite these accomplishments, Addams maintained a tenuous relationship with academic sociology, declining at least two invitations to join the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago. See Harry Perlstadt, “Applied Sociology,” in 21st Century Sociology: A Reference Handbook, eds. Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2006), 345.

  29. Christie and Gauvreau, Full-Orbed Christianity, 125. Taylor had also opened the Chicago Commons in 1894, a settlement house for German, Scandinavian, and Irish immigrants. He created a reputation for himself as a national social gospel figure. See Ronald C. White, Jr. and C. Howard Hopkins, The Social Gospel: Religion and Reform in Changing America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976), 139.

  30. Christie and Gauvreau, Full-Orbed Christianity, 143. A 1927 study by Luther Bernard revealed that of the 258 responses from a questionnaire of sociologists’ autobiographical backgrounds, 61 had previously been in the ministry and another 18 had formal training in divinity schools. See Lewis A. Coser, “American Trends,” in A History of Sociological Analysis, ed. Tom Bottomore and Robert Nisbet (New York: Basic Books, 1978), 287.

  31. Ibid., 288.

  32. Bell, Stockholm Conference; and Report Presented to the Conference on Christian Politics, Economics, and Citizenship at Birmingham, April 5–12, 1924, vols. 1–12 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1924).

  33. Greek, Religious Roots, 196.

  34. Ibid., 196–197. One major blow to social gospel theology in particular was from Fundamentalism, which from its emergence in 1910 desired to rid the country of Progressivism and restore conservative values. Fundamentalism rejected the theology of social salvation and reiterated more classic views of individual salvation, biblical inerrancy, and dispensational premillennialism. Fundamentalists believed that Jesus’ second coming would be delayed by working toward the restoration of Earth, antithetical to the entire mission and vision of the social gospel movement. Fundamentalism was overall successful in its attack against the social gospel and liberal theology, while also largely ending Protestant involvement in social concerns for the next several decades.

  35. Ibid., 205.

  36. Perlstadt, “Applied Sociology,” 346.

  37. Ibid., 1.

  38. This period of the discipline would extend to around 1960. Jennifer Platt, A History of Sociological Research Methods in America: 1920–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 2.

  39. Greek, Religious Roots, 209.

  40. William F. Ogburn, “The Folkways of a Scientific Sociology,” Address of the President of the American Sociological Society at its Annual Meeting, Washington DC, December 27–30, 1927. Ogburn had a four-fold vision for making sociology more academic: (1) sociology had to give up its claim that it alone could reform society; (2) sociology had to become truly objective; (3) research methodologies must consist of mathematics and statistics; and (4) the field of scientific sociology must move away from social theory and social philosophy.

  41. However, in Chapin’s 1935 presidential address to the American Sociological Society, he noted a difference between normative social theory and non-normative social theory. Normative social theory includes “all utopian ideologies” such as “evangelical religious systems” and other perspectives that hold to certain principles that should guide social action. In making such a distinction, Chapin leaves room for the “old style” of sociology to continue, though distinct from the “secular” style. See F. Stuart Chapin, “Social Theory and Social Action,” American Sociological Review 1:1 (February 1936): 3–4.

  42. Greek, Religious Roots, 229.

  43. See Martin Bulmer, Kevin Bales, and Kathryn Kish Sklar, eds., The Social Survey in Historical Perspective: 1880–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Edmund deS. Brunner, American Agricultural Villages (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1927); Turner and Turner, Impossible Science, 91. H. Paul Douglass and Edmund deS. Brunner, two important Institute researchers, were also highly skilled in rural sociology.

  44. Rockefeller Foundation, “Moments in Time: 1913–1919,” http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-history/1913-1919. In addition, the Rockefeller Foundation was the largest single supporter of sociological research in the United States between 1920 and 1940. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund (1918–1929) funded sociological research at key centers of the discipline, including Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, North Carolina, and the Social Science Research Council. See Drysdale and Hoecker-Drysdale, “History of Sociology,” 35. Rockefeller was “the most important financier of liberal and ecumenical Protestantism and a rallying point in the demands for change inside the church.” See Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), 152.

  45. G. W. Corner, “John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. 1974–1960,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 6 (Nov. 1960): 117–118. See also Collier and Horowitz, The Rockefellers, 150–151.

  46. Samuel McCrea Cavert, The American Churches in the Ecumenical Movement, 1900–1968 (New York: Association Press, 1968), 108.

  47. The Interchurch World Movement of North America, World Survey: Revised Preliminary Statement and Budget In Two Volumes, vol. 1, American Volume; vol. 2, Foreign Volume and A Statistical Mirror (New York City: Interchurch Press, 1920). The IWM is perhaps best remembered—though not always positively—for its involvement in the steel strike of 1919. See Interchurch World Movement of North America, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920).

  48. Charles H. Harvey, “John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of 1910–1920: A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement,” Church History 51:2 (June 1982): 199–200.

  49. Harvey, “John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,” 202.

  50. This sentiment is also explicit in the documents of the IWM. For example, in the section on hospitals and homes of the IWM’s World Survey, the text states that “it is Christian teaching that all healing is divine healing” and that “Christ was the first to establish free clinics.” See The Interchurch World Movement of North America, World Survey, 243. The American Hospitals and Homes Survey Department of the IWM analyzed data received from over 200 questionnaires sent to hospitals and homes across various denominations.

  51. Greek, Religious Roots, 205.

  52. Charles Harvey describes in detail, according to Rockefeller’s personal papers, an account of how Raymond B. Fosdick covered up the financial and legal scandal of the IWM in order to protect the Rockefeller name. It involved a struggle between major denominations in light of the newly erupted Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the United States, in addition to a series of financial maneuvers to clear Rockefeller from fiscal responsibility of the IWM’s failure. Fosdick then wrote an allegedly one-sided history of the IWM and deposited it in several key libraries and theological schools. See Harvey, “John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,” 205–206.

  53. Those studies were Robert L. Kelly, Theological Education in America: A Study of One Hundred Sixty-One Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924); Gustavus E. E. Lindquist, The Red Man in the United States: An Intimate Study of the Social, Economic, and Religious Life of the American Indian (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1923); Harlan Paul Douglass, The St. Louis Church Survey: A Religious Investigation with a Social Background (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924); Walter S. Athearn, The Indiana Survey of Religious Education (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924); and H. N. Morse and Edmund deS. Brunner, The Town and Country Church in the United States (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1923.)

  54. Mott, along with other notables of the early ecumenical movement such as William Temple and Willem A. Visser’t Hooft, envisioned “a world Christian body that would link the churches together in unity, mission and service.” P. A. Crow, “World Council of Churches,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid, Robert D. Linder, Bruce L. Shelley, and Harry S. Stout (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 1273–1275. Although Mott was an evangelist at heart, he took a middle position between evangelism and social action, stating that, “…there is no conflict between the emphasis on the conversion of the individual and the regeneration of society. The two are complementary, not contrasted. Evangelism without social work is deficient; social work without evangelism is impotent.” He goes on, “Let us continue to press with enthusiasm the study of social problems and urge participation in social service, but withal the evangelistic note must be struck with decision and clearly.” John R. Mott, “Editorial,” The Student World 5:4 (October 1912), 150–151. Galen Fisher arrived in Japan as a missionary in 1897 and served as General Secretary of the American YMCA in Japan until 1919, where his primary goal was to “apply Christian principles to social problems.” John Nurser, For all Peoples and All Nations: The Ecumenical Church and Human Rights (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), 80. Fisher earned a MA in Sociology from Columbia University in 1919. His 1923 text, Creative Forces in Japan, outlined the numerous social problems plaguing the Japanese people and suggestions for “Christian solutions.” See Galen M. Fisher, Creative Forces in Japan (New York: Missionary Education Movement of the Untied States and Canada, 1923), 66–106.

  55. John R. Mott and Galen M. Fisher, The Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1921–1934: A Sketch of its Development and Work (New York: The Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1934), 10. Among those serving on the Board of Directors over the 13 years included Raymond B. Fosdick (1883–1972), future President of the Rockefeller Foundation (1936 to 1948) and personal friend of and advisor to Rockefeller, Jr.

  56. Cavert, American Churches, 111–112.

  57. Mott and Fisher, The Institute, 8. According to Christie and Gauvreau, the Institute was “in fact a lineal descendant of the social survey movement.” See Christie and Gauvreau, Full-Orbed Christianity, 178.

  58. John S. Gilkeson, Anthropologists and the Rediscovery of America, 1886–1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Gilkeson 2010), 75.

  59. See, for example, H. N. Morse, The Country Church in Industrialized Zones: The Effects of Industrialization upon the Church Life of Adjacent Rural Areas as Illustrated by Two Typical Counties (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1922), vii. There are variations of this phrase, such as, “[The Institute was organized as] an independent agency to apply scientific method to the study of socio-religious phenomena.” See Harlan Paul Douglass and Edmund deS. Brunner, The Protestant Church as a Social Institution (New York: The Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1935).

  60. Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown: A Study in American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929). Robert and Helen Lynd were also Protestant “moralists schooled in the Social Gospel movement.” See Gilkeson, Rediscovery of America, 74–75. It is not within the limits of this paper to fully address the Middletown study and its relationship to the Institute and to American sociology as a whole. For an overview, see Turner and Turner, The Impossible Science, 43–44.

  61. Lynd and Lynd, Middletown, 4.

  62. One methodological concern of the Middletown study is the neglect of the city’s African-American and foreign-born populations. Robert and Helen Lynd purposefully chose Muncie, IN for three primary reasons: (1) it had a population between 25,000 and 50,000; (2) it was self-contained geographically (not a “satellite city”); and (3) it had “a small Negro and foreign-born population.” Their rationale for the last point is as follows: “In a difficult study of this sort it seemed a distinct advantage to deal with a homogeneous, native-born population, even though such a population is unusual in an American industrial city.” Lynd and Lynd, Middletown, 505–534, 8. What the Lynds do not state in their study is that in 1920, Muncie was actually 2 % foreign-born and just under 6 % African-American, according to 1910 census data. Lynd, “Making of Middletown,” 231–232.

  63. Gilkeson, Rediscovery of America, 76.

  64. Lynd, “Making of Middletown,” 231–232. Mark C. Smith also states that, “the Lynds so angered Fosdick and the Institute by their insistence that classes exist and have conflicting interests that the Institute withdrew its support and refused to publish the book.” See Mark C. Smith, “From Middletown to Middletown III: A Critical Review,” Qualitative Sociology 7:4 (Winter 1984): 329. Charles Harvey also mentions Fosdick’s contention with the report, that he found the “emphasis on class division merely speculative.” Despite this, after Middletown’s roaring success, Fosdick gave credit to the Institute and Rockefeller for the “pioneering study.” See Harvey, “John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,” 207.

  65. Lynd, “Making of Middletown,” 232.

  66. Turner and Turner, The Impossible Science, 44.

  67. Mott and Fisher were selective in their retelling of the Institute’s history, and in doing so left out the controversy surrounding Middletown. However, Middletown was a roaring success. Robert Lynd and Helen Lynd released a follow-up volume in 1937, Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929). The pair of volumes was highly generative, sparking over 80 years of sociological reflection on Muncie, IN and the “typical” American city.

  68. The conclusion of funding for the Institute is complicated. Rockefeller’s motive for funding the IWM and then the Institute was couched in his ecumenical desire for unity of the churches and the expanded work of the church into various aspects of society. The Institute did not engage in this kind of work in the same way as Rockefeller. Institute researchers produced studies about churches and society and often offered recommendations for ecumenical cooperation, but only when requested. After 1935, however, Rockefeller abandoned direct efforts to unify churches and their reach into society. See Harvey, “John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,” 208. Drysdale and Hoecker-Drysdale also state that Rockefeller withdrew his support because “the statistical rigor and absence of practical value of supporters and readers.” See Drysdale and Hoecker-Drysdale, “History of Sociology,” 35. Essentially, it appears as if the Institute’s penchant for quantitative analysis did not fit Rockefeller’s agenda.

  69. Mott and Fisher, The Institute, 18.

  70. Ibid., 22–23. The text does not provide the exact questions asked, nor the exact answers received from the professors. In order to fully realize the nature of this exchange, one would need access to the primary source documents.

  71. The text contains only half of the responses from the 112 replies, immediately raising the question: what did the other half of the replies say, and who were they from? Notably absent is a representative from the University of Chicago, a major player in the development of American academic sociology. This could be because of the quantitative focus of the Institute, which aligned it more with the Columbia approach to sociology.

  72. Mott and Fisher, The Institute, 43.

  73. Ibid., 48.

  74. Ibid., 52.

  75. Turner and Turner, The Impossible Science, 41.

  76. See Glenn T. Miller, Piety and Profession: American Protestant Theological Education, 1870–1970 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), 470.

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    Gina A. Zurlo

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Zurlo, G.A. The Social Gospel, Ecumenical Movement, and Christian Sociology: The Institute of Social and Religious Research. Am Soc 46, 177–193 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9231-z

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