Truce - History of the Christian Church

Want more Truce? Give a little bit each month and you'll gain access to a patrons-only Zoom event!

We'll be getting together to discuss "In His Steps" and answer listener questions. This event is open to anyone who gives $10/month or more on Patreon.

Link: https://www.patreon.com/trucepodcast

Event details: Tuesday August 9, 2022 at 8pm EST/7pm CST/ 6pm MT/ 5pm PST. Zoom link will be posted on Patreon for those who give $10/month or more.

If you cannot give to help the show, but still really want to participate, please get in touch with @trucepodcast on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook and Chris will try to squeeze you in.

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In His Steps by Charles Sheldon is a classic of Christian fiction. It is also one of the top-selling Christian books of all time. We've been running through the history of Christian fundamentalism this season. It's worth noting that fundamentalism was a reaction to liberal theology, especially modernism. Another form of liberal theology was the "Social Gospel". It was a movement led by people like Walter Rauschenbusch that emphasized the socially conscious aspects of Christianity, while simultaneously downplaying evangelism.

Christian fundamentalists did not like the Social Gospel. For one thing, it had a positive view of human progress. It said that the world could get better and better and then Jesus would return. Christian fundamentalists generally think that world history trends downward.

I'm presenting this original audio recording for many reasons. I think this book offers a great window into the era in which it was created (the late 1800s). It also represents the Social Gospel and a slice of the Holiness movement quite well. Finally, I think we need to hear this story in our modern context. Modern Christian churches are divided. What would happen if we dared to ask "What Would Jesus Do?"

Things to track as you listen:

In His Steps resides in the public domain, but this recording is copyrighted in 2022 by Truce Media LLC.

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Can a Christian be holy? Can we go a week, a day, or an hour without sinning?

These are questions that modern Christians struggle with. They have their origin in John Wesley, a hymn writer, preacher, and one of the founders of Methodism. In this episode of Truce, we track how this seemingly simple concept got tied up in movements from fundamentalism to Pentecostalism.

This episode is going to seem a bit "out there". But this information is important to fundamentalism. Keswick Holiness in particular created an "us and them" scenario where there are Christians who "get it" and those who don't. The divide is between "carnal" Christians and those who are really saved. This impulse makes it easier for fundamentalists to see themselves as set apart from other Christians.

We're joined by Chris Evans, author of "Do Everything" which is a biography of suffragette Frances Willard.

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After the evangelist D.L. Moody died at the end of the 1800s, he left behind a series of lieutenants, guys who carried on the work of sharing the gospel and shaping culture. It was these men who went on to set the foundation of the fundamentalist movement in the United States. James Gray, Arthur Pierson, A.J. Gordon, Charles Blanchard, and William Erdman, C.I. Scofield, and William Bell Riley. These guys went on to found schools, start radio ministries, spearhead publications, and amass large followings. They wrote the influential (if under-read) pamphlet series “The Fundamentals” and would fight the rise of Darwinism in schools and liberal theology in denominations.

In this episode, we'll explore the emergence of fiefdoms in evangelicalism—ministries with little or no denominational oversight. This method of ministry was crucial in landing us where we are today. Could the evangelicals Church of today use a Magna Carta of sorts to keep ministries under accountability?

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DL Moody. The name may be familiar. There is a Moody Publishers, a Moody Bible Institute, Moody Radio. His name is all over evangelicalism. His remarkable life story is something worth noting. Though Moody was not a fundamentalist, some of the tactics he used to build his ministry would be employed by some of his lieutenants when they built the foundation of the movement.

So we're going to spend this episode talking about this remarkable man. Born in poverty, educated to only about a 4th-grade level, he would rise to become one of the most important American evangelists. His folksy style and booming voice were winsome to the millions of people to whom he preached. In this difficult series about controversial ideas, why not take some time to discuss something that went right in the late 1800s? The ministry of Moody.

I'm joined in this episode by Kevin Belmonte. He's the author of several history books including D.L. Moody: A Life. Check out his books and let me know what you think!

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The 1800s were an era of big questions, many of which we answered in cruel and selfish ways.

Some people answered these questions with a resounding "yes". But if we think our people and ways are better than anyone else's, what responsibility do we have to spread those things? Men like Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt were firm believers in social Darwinism, though their vision of it meant teaching those less "civilized" people our ways. And they were okay with the United States taking power over them.

Meanwhile, there were men like William Jennings Bryan who refused to think of others in social Darwinism terms. He spent years fighting that dark philosophy, ultimately prosecuting the Scopes Monkey trial to stop the spread of social Darwinism. But the seeds of eugenics were planted.

Caught in the middle were the people of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Phillippines, and other colonies of the Spanish empire. Spain was busy imprisoning Cubans in concentration camps. Their ruthless behavior toward America's neighbors caught the attention of the US Senate, which was already champing at the bit for a fight. Men in the United States were worried about their waning influence on society. Groups bellyached about how men were not men anymore thanks to cities and offices. In the minds of some, war was the answer to weak-willed men. And Spain provided that war.

Our guest today is Paul T. McCartney author of “Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism”. He teaches at Towson University.

**CORRECTION - In the original version of this story I referred to the USS Maine as the HMS Maine. That was incorrect. HMS stands for "Her Majesty's Ship", which makes no sense for American ships. The current version was changed for accuracy.**

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Populism is a tricky subject. We use it these days as a slur, but populism can be a useful phenomenon. History professor and author Michael Kazin says that populism is an important tool when it comes to regulating power. In the late 1800s, railroads and banks were out of control. Industrialists like John D. Rockefeller had uninhibited control of their markets. Rockefeller believed in social Darwinism and didn't mind using dirty tactics to undermine his competition.

The Populist Party sprouted out of frustrations women had with the political machines of their day. Republicans and Democrats were not yet willing to accept women and the issues they cared about. Women were slowly becoming a force within politics, but neither party had the guts to accept them. So women and others decided to form their own party. But in the election of 1896, the Populist Party was worried about a split vote. They worried that if they were to run a candidate of their own then they might split the vote. So the Populist Party backed Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan.

Bryan was a man of God. He quoted the Bible extensively, talked about the example of Jesus. But he was soundly defeated by the Republicans and William McKinley. He had only about 4% of the budget of his opponents. The story of Bryan is an interesting one because it contains the building blocks of fundamentalism.

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The Great Depression. Some say that it was caused by a failure of the stock market. Well... that's not all. Jacob Goldstein, host of NPR's Planet Money podcast and author of "Money: the Truce Story of a Made-Up Thing" joins us to discuss the role the gold standard played in making the depression what it was.

Here is why the gold standard made the Great Depression much worse. Simply put, the panic of 1929 caused people to run to the bank and demand their money back in the form of gold. We were on the gold standard back then and you could literally go to a bank and ask for them to get your money in gold. But banks were running out! There was only so much gold on hand because banks don't generally keep 100% of their money in the vault. And banks (for the ease of our understanding things) "create" money when they do loans. So it was possible for a bank only to have a certain percentage of their loans backed by actual gold.

This created real trouble. If the banks ran out of gold, they'd go broke and have to close. So the Federal Reserve decided to raise interest rates. Raising interest rates gives people an incentive to leave their money in banks because then they get more interest. BUT it also made it harder for people to borrow money or refinance their existing loans. Which put a huge crimp on the American financial system. In order to keep gold in the banks, the Fed had to hobble the loan industry. That meant that businesses couldn't get loans to help with payroll, and people looking to start a business couldn't get the money they needed. And the economy froze.

That is why the gold standard was bad for the economy. Preserving it meant sacrificing the loan industry.

Helpful Sources:

• "Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing"

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There was a time not so long ago when the value of an ounce of gold cost $20.67. That was true not just in one moment or one year. It was true in the 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1920s... This was the gold standard. A person could take $20.67 to a federal bank and receive an ounce of gold in return.

This system worked really well... for a while. But by the 1890s the constant deflation caused by the increasing value of gold meant that people with loans had to work harder and harder to pay them back. The value of gold and the value of goods had an inverse relationship, like a seesaw. One side went up and the other went down.

This is the topic William Jennings Bryan chose to discuss at the 1896 Democratic Convention. And it was that speech that won him the presidential nomination that year. Imagine that! Someone so passionate about inflating the cost of goods that they are chosen to be president! His bimetallism (he wanted to add silver into the mix to devalue the specie) stance came out of his social gospel leanings and his Christian faith. This was a high point for the social gospel. As the evangelical world was about to turn to the darker premillennialist view, Bryan made an impassioned plea that we could, in fact, make this world a better place.

My guest for this episode is the amazing Jacob Goldstein. He's the author of the book “Money: the True Story of a Made-Up Thing”. He's also a former co-host of the Planet Money podcast and now hosts "What's Your Problem?", a show where he interviews guests about the issues in their industries. You'll also hear from Michael Kazin, professor of history from Georgetown and author of "A Godly Hero".

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This season of the Truce Podcast tracks the history of Christian fundamentalism. So far we've covered the rise of para-church ministries through preachers, the creation of dispensationalism, and the rising threat of modernist theology in the late 1800s. That is a lot to digest! So in this episode, I thought it would be helpful to sit down with some of the smartest guys I know and ask them, "how do we deal with Christian fundamentalism?"

Christian fundamentalism has impacted our lives in various ways. Ray McDaniel (pastor of First Baptist Church in Jackson, WY) shares that he grew up under fundamentalist teaching. Chris Staron (host of the Truce Podcast) talks about his childhood and teen years listening to fundamentalist radio. Nick Staron discusses the last few years when he has seen fundamentalism rise inside his own circle of friends.

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