Turbulent Decades 1920postwar period

1
Turbulent Decades1920-postwar period

• Jillian Blomeley
• Chapter 16 p.423-441

2
The Overuse of the Protestant Past
The 1920s

• Presidents speeches (Harding and Coolidge)
• Middletown by Robert and Helen Lynd (1929)
• Acres of Diamonds speech by Russell Conwell
• The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton (1925)
• Red Scare
• Ku Klux Klan

3
Demographics

• Catholic Church
• growing rapidly
• Black Baptist and Methodist churches
• as strong as ever
• Jewish population
• Growing due to immigration

4
Internal Difficulties

• fundamentalists vs. modernists
• an end to Protestant domination
• The tearing apart if Protestantism in the
  twentiesis one of the major instances of
  American religious history. Its full
  consequences for culture and society keep
  revealing themselves differently with each
  passing decade. Martin Marty (as quoted on p.
  430).

5
Failed Ecumenical

• -Interchurch World Movement
• (United States)
• limited funds and a lack of interest
• -United Church
• (Canada)
• early goals of expansion were not reached

6
The Spread of Catholicism in Politics

• Al Smith (Catholic)
• nominated for presendent
• in 1928.
• Won 60 more votes
• than any other democratic
• candidate in the past.

7
The Continuing Growth of Catholicism (Despite
the Depression)
The 1930s

• economic and population growth
• Emergence of Catholic Organnizations
• -Catholic Action
• -Catholic Worker Movement

Dorothy Day
8
Voices on behalf of religion

• US
• Gerald B. Winrod
• Charles Coughlin
• spoke out against Franklin Roosevelt
• Canada
• T.C. Tommy Douglas and James Woodsworth
• Cooperative Common Wealth Federation
• William Aberhart
• Social Credit

9
Wars impact on

• Family structures
• Geographical living patterns
• Occupational demographics
• Veterans attending colleges
• Womens role in the family

10
Boom in Nations and Churches

• The Baby Boom
• New families becoming attached to churches
• 1 000 000 Catholic babies baptized in one year
  (US)
• Creation of Catholic Sunday school
• Baptists grow by 300 000
• Rapid Growth in Methodist churches
• United church of Canada builds 1500 churches and
  over 600 manses.

11
Cooperation Among Christians

• National Association of Evangelicals (1942)
• National Council of Churches (1950)
• United Church of Christ (1959)
• Baptist Federation of Canada (1944)
• Canadian Council of Churches (1944)
• This brought about Nationalistic Ambitions
• This Nation is Under God

12
Concern for Psychological Impacts of Religion

• Peace of Mind by Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman (1946)
• Guide to Confident Living by Norman Vincent Peale
  (1948)
• The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent
  Peale (1952)
• Peace of Soul by Bishop Fulton J Sheen (1949)
• Peace with God by Billy Graham (1953)

13
Catholicism in the Public Life

• Schools
• Colleges
• Service Organization
• Publishers and learned societies
• Senator McCarthy (Catholic)
• President John F. Kennedy (Catholic) 1960

14
Theology Problems

• Carl F.H. Henry
• The Uneasy Conscience pf Modern Fundamentalism
  (1947)
• The Christian View of Science and Scripture
  (1954)
• defends compatibility of modern science and
  traditional views
• Monsignor John Tracy Ellis
• American Catholic and the Intellectual Life
  (1955)
• Crippling the outreach of Catholicism into the
  larger society (Nolls 441).