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Evangelicals In The 19th Century Essay

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4.1 THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND EVANGELICAL REACTION IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY The nineteenth century saw Evangelicals in England playing a major role in the social justice issues of their time: the abolition of slavery, the establishment of volunteer societies working among the poor to alleviate suffering, and political advocacy for improved working conditions in the new industrial economy. As well, there was unprecedented momentum in foreign missions. The pattern set by British evangelicals was followed in North America and South Africa as well, sustained by the early revivalists who recognized the “social context, the social implications, the social causes, and the social effects of personal sin” (David O. Moberg: 1977). Therefore when Christians entered the shanty towns of Eastern Cape or Kwazulu Natal to preach the gospel, they quickly moved to establish social welfare programs aimed at …show more content…

Therefore, Christian social workers at this time advocated politically for the right of labour to strike for higher wages, for laws to control child labour, and for legislation to prevent the exploitation of women. The social problems revolved around rising inequities between the rich and the poor in urban-industrial South Africa; conflicts between labour and capital; rapid growth of industrialized cities and towns and resulting squalid conditions for workers; starvation wages; and economic exploitation. Social Gospel thinkers saw that unchecked industrial capitalism bred widespread poverty and many accompanying social ills. As a movement it was characterized by challenging the dominant ideology of laissez-faire capitalism, the individualism of religious and moral commitment, and

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