TITSWORTH, JUDSON
(23 October 1845, Shiloh, NJ-9 April 1919). Education: B.A., Amherst College, 1870; B.D., Union Theological Seminary, 1873; D.D., Beloit, 1885. Career: Minister, Westfield, MA, 1873-78; Chelsea, MA, 1878-83; Milwaukee, WI, 1883-1909.
After moving to Wisconsin from New England, Judson Titsworth built in Milwaukee an unusual church. Located in the center of the city, it had no steeple and featured an amusements room and a basketball court. Although still a rarity, similar buildings existed in New York, Indianapolis, and Chicago. Known as "institutional churches," they reflected their pastors' devotion to the Social Gospel.
'Titsworth believed that the church's mission was not so much to rescue sinners from an angry God as to promote the Kingdom of God on earth. He held that in original sin Adam did not so much fall as stumble. According to Titsworth, Adam then "struggled to his feet...the pioneer in that magnificent spiritual movement which is not to cease until humanity is brought to its goal."
In his social ministry Titsworth labored mightily and with good humor to overcome the ills of industrial America. He was an admirer of Horace Bushnell· and a friend of Washington Gladden·, and some of their spirit of progressive goodwill entered Titsworth's ministry. He favored child labor reform, labor unions, profit sharing, and prohibition. In various ways he tried to improve society by using the church as a social center: boys' and girls' clubs met at the church, and dances were held at which the ministers encouraged the socially elite in his congregation to meet with working persons. Blaming greed for many of society's ills, he preached the old Puritan doctrine that any job involves a calling to serve society as well as oneself.
A good businessman, Titsworth argued, should have "a jovial, hospitable, and loving spirit." After visiting England he claimed that capitalism there was more constructive than in America: "England is proceeding on the assumption that opportunity means development and the result is a glad surprise to those who love their fellow men."
Titsworth is less well known than such giants among the Social Gospellers as Washington Gladden, but in his career one sees how the gospel found its way into hundreds of parishes throughout the country. What was required was a particular outlook on life, hard work, and a certain affection for one's fellow humans. In his later life Titsworth described this comradery when he said of the ministry: "In no profession are there such dividends in friendship, in pure, disinterested friendship."
Bibliography
A: Titsworth manuscripts in the Plymouth United Church of Christ Archives, Milwaukee; The Moral Evolution: Lenten Sermons on Sin and Its Remedy (Milwaukee, 1908).
B: WWWA (1897-1942), 1242-43; Quarter Centennial of Judson Titsworth: 1883-1908 (Milwaukee, 1908); Will Bloss Titsworth, The Titsworth Family (Hopkins, Minn., 1964); John Derge, "In Search of the Kingdom in Milwaukee: Judson Titsworth and the Social Gospel: 1883-1909," Mid-America, 66 (1984), 99-109. TUCKER
After moving to Wisconsin from New England, Judson Titsworth built in Milwaukee an unusual church. Located in the center of the city, it had no steeple and featured an amusements room and a basketball court. Although still a rarity, similar buildings existed in New York, Indianapolis, and Chicago. Known as "institutional churches," they reflected their pastors' devotion to the Social Gospel.
'Titsworth believed that the church's mission was not so much to rescue sinners from an angry God as to promote the Kingdom of God on earth. He held that in original sin Adam did not so much fall as stumble. According to Titsworth, Adam then "struggled to his feet...the pioneer in that magnificent spiritual movement which is not to cease until humanity is brought to its goal."
In his social ministry Titsworth labored mightily and with good humor to overcome the ills of industrial America. He was an admirer of Horace Bushnell· and a friend of Washington Gladden·, and some of their spirit of progressive goodwill entered Titsworth's ministry. He favored child labor reform, labor unions, profit sharing, and prohibition. In various ways he tried to improve society by using the church as a social center: boys' and girls' clubs met at the church, and dances were held at which the ministers encouraged the socially elite in his congregation to meet with working persons. Blaming greed for many of society's ills, he preached the old Puritan doctrine that any job involves a calling to serve society as well as oneself.
A good businessman, Titsworth argued, should have "a jovial, hospitable, and loving spirit." After visiting England he claimed that capitalism there was more constructive than in America: "England is proceeding on the assumption that opportunity means development and the result is a glad surprise to those who love their fellow men."
Titsworth is less well known than such giants among the Social Gospellers as Washington Gladden, but in his career one sees how the gospel found its way into hundreds of parishes throughout the country. What was required was a particular outlook on life, hard work, and a certain affection for one's fellow humans. In his later life Titsworth described this comradery when he said of the ministry: "In no profession are there such dividends in friendship, in pure, disinterested friendship."
Bibliography
A: Titsworth manuscripts in the Plymouth United Church of Christ Archives, Milwaukee; The Moral Evolution: Lenten Sermons on Sin and Its Remedy (Milwaukee, 1908).
B: WWWA (1897-1942), 1242-43; Quarter Centennial of Judson Titsworth: 1883-1908 (Milwaukee, 1908); Will Bloss Titsworth, The Titsworth Family (Hopkins, Minn., 1964); John Derge, "In Search of the Kingdom in Milwaukee: Judson Titsworth and the Social Gospel: 1883-1909," Mid-America, 66 (1984), 99-109. TUCKER
