A History Lecture Titled "The Social Gospel" (it's true!!)

Last week, one of my history lectures at the university was actually titled "The Social Gospel". Strange, isn't it? Well let me tell ya, I paid extra-close attention to this lecture, and was it ever interesting. My history professor (and no, this is not a religious history class or anything like that), who I am not sure is a Christian or not, actually said on the first slide what "The Social Gospel's key goal was--"Building the Kingdom of God on Earth". (and she mentioned that this idea is contrary to believing the Kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, which was the main prior belief).

This lecture was about social reformers in early 20th century and how "the church" was a big part of this, and because they felt that they were no longer relevant in society, they decided to change the way to do church in an attempt to become more relevant. My professor actually said that it was ironic because in an attempt to be relevant, they essentially became irrelevant because they weren't really the church anymore, but merely social activists!! (Bingo!) She said that many people simply left the church altogether because it became nothing different from a political social movement.

She said that the Social Gospel was "watered-down theology" (bingo again!!).

One very interesting thing that she mentioned was that Charles Darwin was a major protagonist for the Social Gospel. I am not quite sure why she mentioned him, but I think it was partly because of his idea of evolution, and that the Social Gospel people believe that you can "fix" society through social reform and (maybe this can happen through some type of evolution (???)). Another reason why Darwin was listed as a protagonist of the Social Gospel is because he represented a major shift that happened---"seeking answers not in theology, but in science and sociology." (Which is what people who held to the Social Gospel did as well). "Change the World" ideology was also shared between Darwin and Social Gospel-ers.

We also did a case study of J.S. Woodsworth who was a Methodist minister and quickly embraced the social gospel. Eventually, he left the church and became "radicalized" and became a Labour member (same party that later became CCF and then NDP)in the House of Commons. This commonly happened---social gospel-ers left the church completely, became radical socialists, and rejected orthodox Christian teachings.

Here was one point in the conclusion of the lecture:

"Creating the Kingdom of God on Earth was the result of a crisis about the role of Christianity and the Church in "modern" life.

So....changing theology in an attempt to be "modern"...

Hmmm....sound familiar anybody?