The intellectual and practical endeavour to apply Christian social principles to an industrial and competitive society It is particularly associated in England with Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–72) and Charles Kingsley (1819–75) who preached the merits of co-operation, promoted associations for working men and founded in 1854 a working men’s college. In the twentieth century, the FABIAN SOCIETY and GUILD SOCIALISM continued the tradition; many in the UK Labour Party have attempted to marry Christian ideals to socialism. In France SAINT-SIMON (1760–1825) recommended a new Christianity which would encourage producer associations; later in the nineteenth century there were strong Roman Catholic movements to provide a theology of socialism. In the USA Washington Gladden (1836–1918) fought to make the Congregational Church accept its social responsibilities and inspired the Social Gospel movement.
Richard Ely (1854–1943), a founder of the AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION, expressed his Christianity in his advocacy of the public control of resources and the encouragement of trade unions. The Society of Christian Socialists was founded in 1889. The earliest inspirations for Christian socialism were the New Testament, with its injunction ‘Love Thy neighbour as Thyself’, and the experiment of the early Church of holding all things in common. In the Middle Ages, AQUINAS and others recommended a JUST PRICE.
References
Cort, J.C. (1988) Christian Socialism: an informal history, Mary Knoll, NY: Orbis.
Norman, Edward (1987) The Victorian Christian Socialists, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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