Charles Monroe Sheldon: Following In His Steps

Our Topic for Today:

• Who was Charles Sheldon and what was his role in the spread of the Social Gospel Movement?  

Yesterday's post explored the book In His Steps which first popularized the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?" over 100 years ago.  Today we look more closely at the book's author, Charles Monroe Sheldon.  Charles Sheldon and Walter Rauschenbusch are considered to be the two men most responsible communicating the ideals of the social gospel to a broad populace of Christians in America.

[Source: http://www.mastersimage.com/articles/ihs.htm ]

Charles Monroe Sheldon was born in 1857 and grew up in the Dakota Territory, where his parents homesteaded in a log cabin he helped build. His father was the Territory's first home missionary superintendent, founding 100 churches in 10 years. Young Sheldon "hunted with the Dakotas, fished with them, slept with them on the open prairie, and learned some of their language."

The Sheldons had daily Bible reading and prayer, and Charles gained a deep love of books and learning. After his conversion in a Yankton church, he began writing at age 12, selling his work to a Boston newspaper. It was the beginning of a prodigious lifelong output resulting in dozens of books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. In his freshman year at Brown University, he came to know Lee Wong, his Chinese laundryman,and founded what he said was "the first Sunday school for Chinese laundrymen in Americad." They learned English by studying the Bible.

After graduating from Andover Theological Seminary, he became minister of a church in Waterbury, Conn., and met a young woman, Mary Merriam, who would become his wife. In Waterbury he helped promote neat and attractive housing, small-business assistance and a good local newspaper, as well as Bible study groups. He organized a reading club for young people, ending up with some 100 participants. They read A Tale of Two Cities aloud the first winter and interest ran so high that Sheldon launched a successful drive to create a town library. When more than two dozen townspeople died of typhoid many called it providence but Sheldon, working with a young physician, demonstrated to local folk that the real problem was their wells were too close to pigpens. With clean water, the typhoid epidemic ceased.

In 1889 he moved west to become pastor of the fledgling Central Congregational Church in Topeka, Kan. He announced he would preach "a Christ for the common people. A Christ who belongs to the rich and poor, the ignorant and learned, the old and young, the good and the bad . . . a Christ who bids us all recognize the Brotherhood of the race, who bids throw open this room to all."

For Sheldon this was not just rhetoric. Topeka was in a depression, and full of disheartened men searching for jobs. Determined to know more about the unemployed, Sheldon put on old clothes and spent a week hunting employment. He tried stores, coal yards and mills to no avail. Finally, he joined laborers shoveling snow from the Santa Fe rail yard tracks at no pay for "the simple joy of working."

He took his experience to the pulpit and realized there was much more he needed to learn about the working man. He decided to spend a week with laborers and professionals, "living as nearly as I could the life they lived, asking them questions about their work, and preaching the gospel to them in whatever way might seem most expedient."

And so Topekans found him riding with streetcar operators one week, attending classes with college students the next, traveling on freight trains with rail workers, attending court with lawyers, going on rounds with doctors, working with businessmen, and pursuing a beat as an unpaid reporter for the local paper.

Not only did this deepen Sheldon's empathy with workers, but it also helped his largely above-working class congregation understand them better. And since he invited everyone he worked with to his church the following Sunday to hear his report on them, many came and some stayed.

Probably his most moving experience was one that awakened Sheldon to the ugly reality of racism. He spent three weeks visiting black people in Topeka, learning firsthand the prejudices they faced. He also became acquainted with Tennesseetown, a destitute community just outside Topeka of freed slaves and their children. It was there he launched an innovation that had an effect not only on Topeka but the nation.

In the summer of 1896 he began to write In His Steps. He read the first chapter to his congregation the night of October 4, 1896.

In His Steps proved immensely popular; The Advance, a weekly religious magazine, bought serial rights and in November 1896 began publishing it chapter by chapter. In 1897 The Advance published it as a book and sales skyrocketed. Some critics complained it was too simplistic, but its simplicity seemed to have a powerful effect on readers, many of whom vowed to follow the book's title.

Over the years In His Steps appeared in millions of copies of news papers, comic books, magazines, and was translated into scores of different languages and produced in countless plays. But because of a mix-up in copyright, the book went into public domain, and Sheldon received practically no royalties, what little he did receive he gave to charity. When he was informed by Publishers Weekly that the book had a greater circulation than any other except the Bible, Sheldon said, "No one is more grateful than I am, as it confirms the faith I have always held that no subject is more interesting and vital to the human race than religion."

Sheldon kept on working indefatigably, writing sequels to In His Steps and continuing to put his faith to work. When the owner of the Topeka Daily Capital offered him full rein editing the paper for one week "as Jesus would do it," he labored 13 to 16 hours a day. The Capital's average daily circulation was just over 11,000, but during Sheldon's week it shot up to more than 362,000.

CLICK HERE to explore other information on this website about  the book In His Steps

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