Gladden, Washington

(Solomon) Washington Gladden (1836–1918), a congregational minister often called the “Father of the Social Gospel,” was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Gladden graduated from Williams College in 1859 and taught school for a year before deciding to enter the Congregational ministry. Ordained in 1860, he took a church in Brooklyn, New York, and then moved to a suburban church (1861–1865). Between pastorates in the two Massachusetts industrial towns of North Adams (1866–1871) and Springfield (1875–1882), Gladden served as religious editor of the weekly Independent. In 1883, he was called to the First Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio, where he stayed until his retirement in 1914.

Although he had no formal seminary training, Gladden had read widely in the social sciences and liberal theology, focusing on the social teachings of Jesus. A lively style and persuasive message of brotherhood and social service earned Gladden a national reputation through his many lectures, over 35 books, and several hymns. He was a promulgator of what became known as the “Social Gospel.” Like Walter Rauschenbusch, Josiah Strong, and Richard Ely, he taught that middle-class Christians must take responsibility for alleviating the material problems resulting from industrialization and urbanization. Gladden exhorted his audience to work for the salvation of society and thus achieve the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Placing particular emphasis on brotherhood and cooperation, Gladden worked to promote understanding between workers and employers, blacks and whites, Protestants and Catholics. In Massachusetts, he had mediated between labor and management. As labor and economics issues continued to concern him, he became increasingly supportive of unions—although never of socialism. In Columbus, whose population had nearly tripled from 1870 to 1880, Gladden became involved in urban reform. He supported municipal ownership of public services, home rule, and an end to corrupt government, which he saw as a ubiquitous urban evil. He helped found the National Municipal League in 1894 and served as an independent alderman on the Columbus City Council from 1900 to 1902.

Beginning in the 1870s, Gladden had participated in the American Missionary Association, working with freedmen in the South. His interest in racial reform intensified after he met W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903. A strong supporter of Protestant ecumenism, Gladden helped found the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, endorsing its landmark Social Creed, which codified the churches' role as agents for social change as well as spiritual comfort. Gladden's inclusiveness extended to Unitarians, Jews, and Catholics; Notre Dame University gave him an honorary degree in 1905.

The Social Gospel movement peaked in the second decade of the 20th century as its proponents joined with secular reformers to bring about social justice through legislation and social service. In 1914 Gladden was, predictably, opposed to entering World War I, but he eventually came to support the American war effort. He died before postwar disillusionment and Protestant fundamentalism began to erode the effects of the Social Gospel.