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The Fear of Cultural Decline: Josiah Strong's Thought about Reform and Expansion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Paul R. Meyer
Paul R. Meyer
Affiliation:
Doctoral candidate in American history in the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
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Extract

Congregational minister and onetime home missionary Josiah Strong (1847–1916) is perhaps best known for his militant advocacy of American expansion. He was also, however, an early leader of the Social Gospel movement who urged the reform of society to cope with the problems of an industrial era. Throughout the thirty-year period during which Strong set forth his views in print (1885–1915) expansion and reform were important themes in his thought, although significant changes appeared in his treatment of both; this was symptomatic of a basic attitudinal shift toward American society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 1973 , pp. 396 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1973

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References

1. Marty, Martin, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Handy, Robert T., A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

2. Handy, Robert T., “The American Religious Depression, 1925–1935,” Church History 29 (1960), pp. 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Strong, Josiah, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York, 1891), p. 222CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Emphasis is his.

4. Ibid., pp. 222–223.

5. Ibid., p. 226.

6. Strong, Josiah, Expansion Under New World Conditions (New York, 1900), p. 282.Google Scholar

7. Strong, , Our Country, p. 219.Google Scholar

8. Strong, , Expansion, pp. 38–39Google Scholar. Emphasis is his.

9. Strong, Josiah, Our World: The New World Life (Garden City, 1913), p. 38.Google Scholar

10. Strong, Josiah, Our World: The New World Religion (Garden City, 1915), p. 393.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., p. 245.

12. Strong, , Our Country, p. 257.Google Scholar

13. Strong, Josiah, The Challenge of the City (New York, 1911), p. 65.Google Scholar

14. Strong, , Our World: The New World Religion, pp. 423, 424.Google Scholar

15. Strong, Josiah, My Religion in Everyday Life (New York, 1910), p. 47Google Scholar. Just as an emphasis on God's immanence can provide a justification for reform, it can also serve to sanction expansion. Looking at the world situation of 1900, Strong thought he discerned the work of Providence. He stated: “But somehow, notwithstanding the lack of human foresight, notwithstanding human blindness and opposition, these many different lands… are found, in a great world crisis, in the hands of one great race, upon which they confer decisive power. If there is no God in such history, there is no God anywhere; for an ‘absentee God’ is for all practical purposes no God at all.” Strong, , Expansion, p. 213Google Scholar. His last book, however, did give more stress to God's transcendence as well.- See Strong, , Our World: The New World Religion, p. 53.Google Scholar

16. Strong, , My Religion in Everday Life, p. 50.Google Scholar

17. Strong, , Our Country, pp. 220–221.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 221–222.

19. Strong's observations on urban life are summarized in the chapter “The Modern City a Menace,” in Strong, , The Challenge of the City, pp. 41–68.Google Scholar

20. Strong, , Our World: The New World Life, p. 125.Google Scholar

21. Strong suggested that disruptive upheaval was the only other alternative: “‘Every man for himself’ in the midst of the new social order is an anachronism. It is the spirit of the eighteenth century animating the body of the twentieth. It is the tiger of the jungle Let loose in the busy marts of men.” Ibid. The use of imagery which suggested violence or retrogession underlined the importance of creating a new philosophy of sharing; the old ideal was leading to catastrophe.

22. Strong, , Our World: The New Worid Religion, p. 223.Google Scholar

23. Strong, , Our World: The New World Life, p. 74.Google Scholar

24. Strong, , Our World: The New World Religion, p. 518.Google Scholar

25. In light of Strong's criticisms of selfishness, it is perhaps noteworthy that he still espoused individualism. In criticizing the excesses of wealth and in advocating sharing, he was trying to correct a balance: “The progress of civilization depends on the differentiation of the individual and the higher organization of society made possible thereby. These are the two feet on which society climbs upward⃜ For nearly four hundred years … the individualizing process has had sway. This has prepared the way for a … movement toward a higher social organization⃜” Strong, Josiah, Religious Movement, for Social Betterment (New York, 1900), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

26. Strong specified the traditions on which civilization was based: “the protection of law, the established and beneficent customs of civilized life; numberless inventions and everyday conveniences; the treasures of literature, art, and science; civil and religious liberty,… [and] respect for human life.…” Strong, , Our World: The New World Religion, p. 158.Google Scholar

27. Strong, , Our Country, p. 217.Google Scholar

28. Strong, , Expansion, p. 100.Google Scholar

29. Strong, , Our World: The New World Religion, p. 158.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 203.

31. Ibid., p. 209.

32. Strong, , Our Worid: The New World life, p. 164.Google Scholar

33. Strong, , The Challenge of the City, pp. 160–161.Google Scholar