A Sobering Precedent for New NCC ‘Social Creed’

It is instructive to look back at the 1908 “Social Creed of the Churches” that is celebrated as the ancestor of the new NCC social creed. That earlier document was a manifesto for the early 20th century “Social Gospel” movement, which turned the then-mainline Protestant churches in a more liberal direction, theologically as well as politically. In the words of the 2006 NCC background paper “Toward a New Social Awakening,” the 1908 creed “called for a new focus of the churches’ ministry” on “work across denominational lines in pursuit of social change.”

The 1908 creed advocated reforms such as “the abolition of child labor” and sweatshops, “the gradual and reasonable reduction of hours of labor to the lowest practical point,” and “suitable provision for the old age of the workers and for those incapacitated by injury.” It hinted at some form of socialism in its call for “the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.” Amidst this list of political goals for which “the Churches must stand,” the 1908 creed made only one brief reference to God—a “pledge of sympathy and of help in a cause [the organized labor movement] which belongs to all who follow Christ.”

The social gospelers who championed the 1908 creed saw many of their particular goals realized. Within decades, as the U.S. economy grew and progressive legislation was passed, child labor was abolished, wages were raised and hours shortened, and Social Security and workers’ compensation systems were established.

But those same decades also saw the mainline denominations slipping ever farther away from their moorings in orthodox Christian theology. The spiritual harvest of the Social Gospel was reaped in the late 20th century, as evangelism and new church development faltered in the mainline denominations and their membership dropped by one third or more. These denominations thereby ceased to be “mainline,” and they lost much of the social influence upon which they had relied to advance their political agendas.

The NCC has paid a price for its embrace of a politicized Social Gospel—a price measured in alienation from the council’s claimed constituencies and in steeply declining revenue from those constituencies. Yet the council, with its new “Social Creed for the 21st Century,” seems determined to raise the Social Gospel banner once more.

This time, the prospects for short or medium-term political gains seem much dimmer than in the early 20th century. The heyday of utopian socialism and pacifism is long past. At this late date, the only likely effect of another liberal NCC social creed might be a slight acceleration in the long-term negative trends within the oldline Protestant denominations. It is not clear how long those denominations can survive while their leaders push repeatedly for “a new focus of the churches’ ministry” apart from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.