Businessman's Religion | Christian History

Paul H. Heidebrecht's doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois focused on the relationship between faith and economic activity among Protestant businessmen in early 20th- century Chicago. This article is taken, with permission, from Chicago Presbyterians and the Businessman's Religion, 1900–1920, which appeared in the Journal of Presbyterian History, Vol 64, No 1, Spring 1986, a publica- of the Presbyterian Historical Society. | posted 7/01/1988 12:00AM

In Chicago, in the early years of this century, great wealth and business know-how were seen by some as the best means of doing great things for God. Evangelism and social reform went hand-in-hand with hard-nosed business practice. Were these rich philanthropist laymen properly promoting the cause of the Gospel, or were they confusing Christianity with the Corporation?

The early decades of the twentieth century reveal a distinct aggressiveness on the part of leading laymen in urban churches who banded together to accomplish specific religious tasks. In the course of “making religion efficient,” these laymen shaped evangelical Protestantism more powerfully than most ministers and theologians of the time realized.

Historical accounts of the collapse of the Protestant consensus in America usually focus upon the theological debates between conservative and liberal ministers and seminary professors (most of which began in the 1890s and continued up through the 1900s). Frequently overlooked are the subtle and not-so-subtle adjustments made by laymen that served to undermine the Protestant ethos of the 19th century. Whether one calls this process the modernization, secularization, accommodation, or domestication of Protestantism, it would appear that the flock was often one step ahead of its shepherds.

The Presbytery of Chicago made gallant efforts to respond to the host of urban ills resulting from the period of tumultuous population growth. Presbyterians were in the forefront of local temperance campaigns, anti-vice crusades, public school battles, and community welfare efforts. The Presbyterian Hospital was a favored charity of the Social Register set, as was the Chicago YMCA. By the end of World War I, the Presbytery had established its own Social Service Commission to deal with “social questions in the light of Christianity.” One of the Commissions first studies was the 1919 race riot that rocked the city and belatedly awoke the white population to the mushrooming black communities on the south and west sides.

Spiritual concerns remained at the top of the Presbytery’s agenda, however. The salvation of an individual soul continued to be the only lasting solution to any social problem. Thus, traditional evangelistic approaches were rarely questioned. In fact, Presbyterian ministers were intimately involved with the Gipsy Smith campaign in 1909, the Wilbur Chapman crusade in 1910, and the Billy Sunday crusade in 1918. These urban revivals were in fact sophisticated business operations (Sunday estimated that it cost $3.95 to save a soul in Chicago) but they still aimed to win allegiance to Christ above all else. Those within the fold required continual spiritual nurture; to this end, the educational agencies of the Presbytery poured their energies into more effective Bible instruction. A Presbyterian Training School was launched in 1908 to prepare church workers. Christian Endeavor societies, Young Men’s and Young Women’s Bible classes, and Presbyterian Brotherhood chapters all received strong support from ministers.

Neither the clergy nor the church members in the Chicago Presbytery were to any degree isolationists. They carried a sense of responsibility for the larger society in which the Church operated and periodically entered the public arena on behalf of higher values and noble ideals. They consciously applied their faith, however under stood, to the exigencies of the world. This can be observed in the examples of several leading Presbyterian laymen.