CHRISTIANS are enjoined to be in the world but not of it, and that has been a difficult rule to follow. Time and again, the churches have slipped over in one direction or the other—too much in the world or too much out of it. From its Puritan beginnings, U.S. Christianity has been deeply concerned with the world, addressing society on its multitude of problems. To a growing number of clergymen, however, being in the world really means being in it—not just talking to it. If they have their way, it may be hard in the future to tell where the church begins and the world leaves off. The role of the churches in the past 100 years can be seen in several distinct phases. The first big social problem confronting them was slavery, and the resulting North-South split of the denominations. Next came the problem of industrialization, with bitter conflicts between capital and labor that led the churches into preaching the optimistic "Social Gospel" of the early 1900s. But the Depression and World War II were too harsh a reality for many ministers, and they followed Reinhold Niebuhr into acceptance of a Bible-centered "crisis theology." Man's best efforts, Niebuhr reminded Christians, were flawed by sin; God's kingdom was not to come until the end of the world.
The Major Concerns
While Niebuhr and some of his colleagues leaned leftward, U.S. Protestantism was politically cautious during the postwar and cold-war years. There was much emphasis on individual redemption, on "faith in faith," as exemplified by the evangelism of Billy Graham. Since then, the churches have entered a new phase of involvement and activism, of protests and politics. This latest era is not all action, as it may occasionally seem, or all emotion. In recent years the churches have evolved a body of ideas and positions notable for their wide range, their relative readiness to accept change and (on the whole) their growing liberalism.
·WELFARE & LABOR. The time is long past when the churches saw the lot of the workingman in terms of charity or when labor unions were denounced as Communist from the pulpit. As early as 1910, the Presbyterians set up the Labor Temple in New York City as "a special mission to workingmen." In 1908, about 30 Protestant denominations formed the Federal Council of Churches, which announced its allegiance "to the toilers of America and to those who by organized effort are seeking to lift the crushing burdens of the poor." Until the outbreak of World War I, the 20th century was an exuberant time. As Congregationalist Minister Gaius Glenn Atkins remembers: "The people were ready [to conquer] 'the World for Christ in this Generation.' The air was full of banners." How Christ would react to the modern world was a favorite topic for sermons and books, including If Christ Came to Chicago, all designed to inspire social reform. A great many churchmen remained stolidly conservative, of course, but the Methodists and other denominations criticized laissez-faire capitalism, and by the time the '30s arrived, many Protestant clergymen were plumping for socialism.