The Progressive Movement: The Early Twentieth Century

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The early century referred to as the progressive movement/ era which was a time when responses were applied to economic and social problems. Progressivism began as a social movement and grew into political movement. Religion is a word that almost defies any consensual definition. Most people reflect some of their own religious beliefs, or at least those of their own culture, in defining religion. The Semitic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) tend to make belief in a god or gods essential to being religious. Those from the great Eastern religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) often make the quest for enlightenment essential, not theism, since early Buddhism was nontheistic. Those familiar with African religions may key their definition …show more content…

Both sprang from Christianity’s attempt to deal with modern problems although with different goals. The social gospel grew out of the abuses of industrialism. By the turn of the twentieth century, American cities had become magnets for cheap labor. Poverty was on an all-time high reflecting hopelessness, some of the rich were philanthropists, but others justified their cruelty with a philosophy called social Darwinism; if evolution favors the survival of the fittest, they argued, then why should the strong help the weak to survive?. The social gospel arose to combat this bleak landscape. Many Christians came to believe than humans could really build the kingdom of God on earth. William Jennings Bryan carried this idea into his three presidential campaigns. To counter the argument, he compared society to a garden saying you can’t let weeds triumph over the roses because they are stronger. Instead you protect the roses from the weeds. Therefore if you want a society with good people some weeding would be needed. Fundamentalism arose from a radically different way than the social gospel. Early in the 20th century, certain significant Christians began to see the bible as a historical text, rather than a revealed truth. They believed the bible had evolved over time and simply reflected the views of the men who wrote it. In the beginning, fundamentalism did not attempt to reach out and change society as a whole. It was the anti-evolution crusade of William Jennings Bryan that turned fundamentalism into a political movement

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