GLADDEN, WASHINGTON 1836-1918

Congregational minister

Roots

Solomon Washington Gladden, the "Father of the Social Gospel" and one of the most influential clergymen in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was born in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, in 1836. His father died when Washington was six years old, resulting in his being raised by his uncles on a farm in Oswego, New York, a part of the country that had been swept by religious revivals in the 1830s. At sixteen Gladden began working for the Oswego Gazette; the first of many affiliations with newspapers throughout his career. He attended Oswego Academy and in 1856 enrolled at Williams College, graduating in 1859. He was soon married and licensed to preach. He had led a rather ordinary life in his first twenty-four years. But Gladden was no ordinary man.

Clergyman and Author

In 1860 he became pastor of the First Congregational Church in Brooklyn where, later that year, he was ordained. A second position took him to Morrisania, New York, for five years (1861—1866), and he then moved on to North Adams, Massachusetts. During these years Gladden was influenced by the work of Horace Bushnell, a Congregational pastor in Hartford, Connecticut, who had pushed the idea of transcending conflict through a theology that rose above the factiousness of denominational forces. The work influenced Gladden greatly. A basic tenet of his social gospel would be the importance of putting moral and practical solutions above theological debate. While in Massachusetts Gladden began his prolific and influential literary career by writing for New York's Independent and Scribner's Monthly. In 1868 he published the first of his many popular books, Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. In 1871 he became an editorial staff member of the Independent, a position he quit four years later because he found the paper's advertising dishonest. He moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1875 to serve the North Congregational Church, staying there for seven years.

Labor and Capital

Early in his life Gladden had become interested in the struggle between labor and capital, a student not only of labor rights and relations but of economics as well. His seven years in the industrial city of Springfield confirmed his support for workers against what Gladden saw as the immoral forces of capital. support of labor unions became a tenet of his social gospel thought, and he later advocated public ownership of utilities and cooperative management of industries, although he disavowed socialism. His criticism of capitalism grew stronger during the years as he furthered his study of workers' rights and taxation. Books with titles such as Tools and the Man (1893) and Social Salvation (1902) presented his views of how churches should deal with economic injustices.

Columbus

Gladden's greatest work and greatest fame came during his years with the First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio. From 1882 until his death in 1918, Gladden worked in the church as his writing increased, his popularity bloomed, and his influence grew. He wrote popular books of contemporary theological criticism, all the while preaching the gospel of a socially active church. He was a firm believer in civic organizations, and in 1900, tired of remaining unheard, he ran for city council in Columbus and was elected to a two-year term. He had recognized that public organizations did not function well because the individuals most suited for the task of leadership by and large refused to take the responsibility of doing so. He hoped to impress on people, through his words and example, the notion that public service was not only a respectable option but could also be a Christian duty. His Applied Christianity: Moral Aspects of Social Questions (1886) explained his philosophy of social activism and the role of religion in fostering the development of a moral social order.

Gladden's Legacy

Washington Gladden was a fair and highly scrupled voice at a time of great conflict not only within and between churches but also between social classes, immigrants, and early labor forces and capital. He authored thirty-eight books and fourteen hundred articles and lectured widely, spreading his words of reconciliation, progress, and compassion. His unswerving dedication to applying his principles to all the major social issues of his day placed him firmly in American religious history as the major force in the awakening of the Protestant conscience in America. He died on 2 July 1918.

Source:

Jacob H. Dorn, Washington Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967).

Washington Gladden

The American clergyman Washington Gladden (1836-1918) was a pioneer of the Social Gospel and a key spokesman for liberal Protestantism.

On Feb. 11, 1836, Washington Gladden was born in Pottsgrove, Pa. Much of his childhood was spent in western New York, a district famous for its religious enthusiasms. This fact, coupled with his family's piety, aroused in young Gladden strong spiritual interests. In the mid-1850s he entered Williams College, where he received a degree preparatory to entering the ministry. In 1860 Gladden accepted his first pastorate in a Congregational church in Brooklyn. For the remainder of his life he devoted his principal energies to ministerial duties in urban areas, first in New York City, then in Massachusetts, and finally for over 30 years at the First Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio.

From the outset Gladden was influenced by the new theological and social concerns animating American Protestantism in the late 19th century. Though lacking formal theological training beyond college, he kept abreast of current developments through wide and systematic reading. He was deeply affected by the writings of Horace Bushnell. Gladden preached the need to adapt Protestant theology to the new developments in biblical criticism and the natural sciences, especially Darwin's theory of evolution. He published several books espousing these views; as a member of the staff of a national journal, the Independent, he disseminated his ideas to a broad national audience. He also contributed frequently to the Congregationalist, a widely respected periodical.

Gladden quickly recognized some of the more destructive tendencies of city living. He urged that the church minister to the needs of working people, the poor, and those hurt by the impersonality of urban life. Thus he was an early exponent of what was eventually called the Social Gospel. He urged support for labor unions to protect the working man, identified with the settlement house movement, and entered into politics in Columbus, Ohio, to represent those seeking reform of municipal government.

Gladden's most spectacular act in support of the Social Gospel occurred in 1905, when he roundly condemned the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a powerful national body of the Congregationalists, for accepting a $100,000 gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He denounced the gift as "tainted money," an attack similar to those being leveled by secular "muckraking" journalists at big business and the great captains of industry.

Although not an originator of new ideas and trends, Gladden nevertheless pioneered in the theological views he adopted and in the social causes he espoused. By the time of his death in Columbus on July 2, 1918, he was considered one of the leading spokesmen for liberal Protestantism and the Social Gospel.

Further Reading

Gladden's autobiography is Recollections (1909). A sound, comprehensive biography of Gladden is Jacob Henry Dorn, Washington Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (1967). An interpretive account of the man and his influence is Richard D. Knudten, The Systematic Thought of Washington Gladden (1968). □

Washington Gladden 1836-1918, American clergyman, writer, and lecturer, b. Pottsgrove, Pa. He was pastor of the First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio, from 1882 until his death. He helped to popularize modernist views in such books as Burning Questions (1890) and Who Wrote the Bible (1891). An early proponent of the Social Gospel , he advocated application of Christian principles to social problems. Among his works are Working People and Their Employers (1876), Social Salvation (1902), and Recollections (1909).