STRONG, JOSIAH
(19 January 1847, Napierville, IL-28 April 1916, New York, NY). Education: B.A., Western Reserve College, 1869; studied at Lane Seminary, 1869-71. Career: Minister, Cheyenne, WY, 1871-73; instructor and chaplain, Western Reserve College, 1873-76; minister, Sandusky, OH, 1876-81; regional secretary, Congregational Home Missionary Society, 1881-84; minister, Cincinnati, OH, 1884-86; secretary, American Evangelical Alliance, 1886-98; president, American Institute for Social Service, 1898-1916 (became American League for Social Service in 1902).
Josiah Strong is known today as one of the foremost spokesmen for the racism that was one of the least attractive characteristics of American life a century ago. In his tremendously popular book, Our Country (1885), Strong argued that under American leadership Anglo-Saxons were destined to dominate the world. Strong said the Anglo-Saxon represented the highest forms of civil liberty and pure Christianity and was "divinely commissioned to be, in a peculiar sense, his brother's keeper."
Today these words suggest an elitist philosophy that we would expect to find associated with smug complacency in matters of social policy. But there is another side to Josiah Strong. He was a social reformer who warned industrial America against too much concentration of wealth and lamented the alienation of industrial workers. He asserted that the world had entered a "new era" where factories and cities posed problems for Christianity.
One of the foremost exponents of the Social Gospel, he argued that Jesus' teachings focused on the idea of "the Kingdom"-an ideal society that could exist here and now on earth-and that the church should create and extend that kingdom. After a few years as a Congregational pastor, Strong entered church administration and was a popular writer and speaker in the United States and England.
A tall, good-looking man with shining eyes, Strong was a dynamic church leader. He believed that the problems of modem life could not be solved by any one church working in isolation. The "Kingdom" could be achieved only through hard work and cooperation. His American Institute for Social Service worked towards interdenominational cooperation, and his "Safety First" movement fostered personal welfare in American factories. In such ways he tran-"" scended the parochial racism so common in his times and established precedents for the ecumenical movement that grew in importance later in the twentieth century.
Bibliography
A: Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York, 1885; Cambridge, MA, 1963); The New Era; or The Coming Kingdom (New York, 1893); The Twentieth Century City (New York, 1898); Religious Movements for Social Betterment (New York, 19(0); The Next Great Awakening (New York, 1902); The Challenge of the City (New York, 1907); My Religion in Every Day Life (New York, 1910).
B: DAB 18, 150-51; NCAB 9, 416-17; NYT 29 April 1919, 11; SH, 11, 115; James Eldin Reed, "American Foreign Policy, the Politics of Missions and Josiah Strong, 1890-1900," Church History, 41 (1972), 230-45; Dorothea R. Muller, "Church Building and Community Making on the Frontier, a Case Study: Josiah Strong, Home Missionary in Cheyenne, 1871-1873," Western Historical Quarterly, 10 (1979), 191-216.
Josiah Strong is known today as one of the foremost spokesmen for the racism that was one of the least attractive characteristics of American life a century ago. In his tremendously popular book, Our Country (1885), Strong argued that under American leadership Anglo-Saxons were destined to dominate the world. Strong said the Anglo-Saxon represented the highest forms of civil liberty and pure Christianity and was "divinely commissioned to be, in a peculiar sense, his brother's keeper."
Today these words suggest an elitist philosophy that we would expect to find associated with smug complacency in matters of social policy. But there is another side to Josiah Strong. He was a social reformer who warned industrial America against too much concentration of wealth and lamented the alienation of industrial workers. He asserted that the world had entered a "new era" where factories and cities posed problems for Christianity.
One of the foremost exponents of the Social Gospel, he argued that Jesus' teachings focused on the idea of "the Kingdom"-an ideal society that could exist here and now on earth-and that the church should create and extend that kingdom. After a few years as a Congregational pastor, Strong entered church administration and was a popular writer and speaker in the United States and England.
A tall, good-looking man with shining eyes, Strong was a dynamic church leader. He believed that the problems of modem life could not be solved by any one church working in isolation. The "Kingdom" could be achieved only through hard work and cooperation. His American Institute for Social Service worked towards interdenominational cooperation, and his "Safety First" movement fostered personal welfare in American factories. In such ways he tran-"" scended the parochial racism so common in his times and established precedents for the ecumenical movement that grew in importance later in the twentieth century.
Bibliography
A: Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York, 1885; Cambridge, MA, 1963); The New Era; or The Coming Kingdom (New York, 1893); The Twentieth Century City (New York, 1898); Religious Movements for Social Betterment (New York, 19(0); The Next Great Awakening (New York, 1902); The Challenge of the City (New York, 1907); My Religion in Every Day Life (New York, 1910).
B: DAB 18, 150-51; NCAB 9, 416-17; NYT 29 April 1919, 11; SH, 11, 115; James Eldin Reed, "American Foreign Policy, the Politics of Missions and Josiah Strong, 1890-1900," Church History, 41 (1972), 230-45; Dorothea R. Muller, "Church Building and Community Making on the Frontier, a Case Study: Josiah Strong, Home Missionary in Cheyenne, 1871-1873," Western Historical Quarterly, 10 (1979), 191-216.
