Josiah Strong

Josiah Strong (1847-1916) was a Protestant clergyman and author. He was a founder of the Social Gospel movement that sought to apply Protestant religious principles to solve the social ills brought on by industrialization, urbanization and immigration. He served as General Secretary (1886-1898) of the Evangelical Alliance for the United States, a coalition of Protestant missionary groups. After being forced out he set up his own group, the League for Social Service (1898-1916), and edited its magazine The Gospel of the Kingdom.

His most well-known and influential work was Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885), intended to promote domestic missionary activity in the American West. Historians suggest it may have encouraged support for imperialistic United States policy among American Protestants. He pleaded as well for more missionary work in the nation's cities, and for reconciliation to end racial conflict. He was one of the first to warn that Protestants (most of whom lived in rural areas or small towns) were ignoring the problems of the cities and the working classes.

He believed that all races could be improved and uplifted and thereby brought to Christ. In the "Possible Future" portion of Our Country, Strong argued that the superior Anglo-Saxon race had a responsibility to "civilize and Christianize" the world. The "Crisis" portion of the text described the numerous "perils" that America faced – Mormonism, Socialism, Intemperance, Wealth, Popery, Urbanization, and Immigration. Conservative Protestants argued that missionaries should spend their time preaching the Gospel; they allowed for charitable activity, but argued it did not actually save souls. In 1891 a revised edition was issued based on the census of 1890. The large increase in immigration during this period led him to conclude that the perils he outlined in the first edition had only grown.

Primary sources

• The New Era: Or, The Coming Kingdom (1898) by Josiah Strong complete text from Books.Google.com
• Address of Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong: The American missionary. Dec 1895 Volume 49, Issue 12 pp. 423-424
• Our Country complete text at Questia
• Josiah Strong on Anglo-Saxon Predominance, 1891, excerpt
• Excerpt from Our Country
• Excerpt from Our Country

Secondary Scholarly Sources

• “Voices for Imperialism: Josiah Strong and the Protestant Clergy,” by William H. Berge in Border States: Journal of the Kentucky-Tennessee American Studies Association, No. 1 (1973)
• Herbst, Jurgen. "Introduction," in Josiah Strong Our Country (Belknap Press 1963 edition)
• Luker, Ralph E. The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform, 1885-1912 (1998).
• Muller, Dorothea R. "Josiah Strong and American Nationalism: A Reevaluation," The Journal of American History 53 (Dec. 1966), 487-503, online at JSTOR at most academic libraries.
• Muller, Dorothea R. "The Social Philosophy of Josiah Strong: Social Christianity and American Progressivism," Church History 1959 v 28 #2 pp. 183-201] online at JSTOR