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The Growth of Political Activism in the National Council of Churches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Henry J. Pratt
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Extract

It has long been recognized that interest groups, formed in many cases for nonpolitical ends, have manifested an almost “inevitable gravitation toward government.” Truman has noted that modern industrial life involves disruptions of social equilibria established in an earlier and simpler era, and that interest group leaders, in an effort to restore some degree of social balance, turn to government as a mediating agent.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , July 1972 , pp. 323 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1972

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References

1 I am indebted to my colleague, Dale Vinyard, for his generous comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

2 Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), pp. 104–106Google Scholar.

3 For instances of activism associated with declining group status see: McConnell, Grant, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy (Berkeley, 1953), p. 15Google Scholar; Huntington, Samuel, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 171 and 229Google Scholar; Bunzel, John H., The American Small Businessman (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, passim; (this author), “Politics, Status and the Organization of Ethnic Minority Group Interests,” Polity, III, No. 2 (Winter, 1970), 222–246Google Scholar. The parallel case, involving activism related to “the rapid and unanticipated acquisition of power,” is offered in Riesman, David and Glazer, Nathan, “Intellectuals and Discontented Classes,” in Bell, Daniel (Editor), The Radical Right (Garden City, 1964), esp. pp. 112–113; 141Google Scholar.

4 Gusfield, Joseph R., “Social Structure and Moral Reform: The Women's Christian Temperance Union,” American Journal of Sociology, LXI (1965), 221–232Google Scholar; Messinger, Sheldon, “Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of a Declining Social Movement,” American Sociological Review, XX, No. 1 (02, 1955), 3–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 An exception to this is: Salisbury, Robert H., “An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, XIII, No. 1 (02, 1969), 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Eldersveld, Samuel, “American Interest Groups: A Survey of Research and Some Implications for Theory and Method,” in Interest Groups on Four Continents, Ehrmann, Henry (Editor) (Pittsburgh, 1960), pp. 192–193Google Scholar.

7 Yinger, J. Milton, Religion and the Struggle for Power (Durham, 1946), pp. 138, 140Google Scholar. A second serious threat to Protestantism in this period was the persuasive sway of evolutionary thinking. On both matters see: Schlesinger, Arthur M., “A Critical Period in American Protestantism, 1875–1900,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, LXIV (06, 1932), 523–548Google Scholar; and Mead, S. E., The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America (New York, 1963), Ch. IXGoogle Scholar.

8 Cavert, Samuel McCrea, The American Churches in the Ecumenical Movement, 1900–68 (New York, 1968), p. 70Google Scholar.

9 Cavert, , op. cit., pp. 65–67Google Scholar. MacFarland, Charles, Christian Unity in the Making (New York, 1948)Google Scholar; MacFarland, Charles, Across the Years (New York, 1936)Google Scholar. Data on budgetary contributions and delegate attendance based on Federal Council Annual Reports, 1912–1933.

10 Interview with Samuel McCrea Cavert, August, 1967.

11 Herring, E. Pendleton, Group Representation Before Congress (Baltimore, 1929), pp. 217, 219Google Scholar.

12 Hutchinson, John A., We Are Not Divided: A Critical and Historical Study of the Federal Council of Churches in America (New York, 1941), p. 305Google ScholarPubMed.

13 Mayer, Donald B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941 (Berkeley, 1961), pp. 171, 286, 288Google Scholar.

14 Hutchinson, , op. cit., pp. 123, 125, 216–217Google Scholar.

15 Carter, Paul A., The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel (Ithaca, 1954), pp. 223–224Google Scholar.

16 Based on an analysis of Federal Council of Churches, Annual Reports, 1930–1950 (selected years)Google Scholar.

17 Carter, , op. cit., p. 224Google Scholar.

18 Interview with Executive Secretary, NGG Washington Office, 1967; Ebersole, Luke E., Church Lobbying in the Nation's Capital (New York, 1951) pp. 97–98Google Scholar; Federal Council of Churches, Annual Report, 1946. The Federal Council Executive Committee further elaborated the original (1946) purpose of the office in the following terms:

a. to give notice regarding legislation and governmental decisions affecting the interests of the churches with special reference to financial and administrative questions.

b. to give interpretations for interested persons of legislation and administrative acts where application is ambiguous.

c. to provide indications of proper channels for contacts in Washington.

19 Federal Council of Churches, Annual Reports, 1936, 1937, 1938Google Scholar.

20 Christianity and Crisis, IX, No. 23 (01 7, 1952), 177Google Scholar. In 1950 the role of the then newly constituted National Lay Committee was described by the Council's General Secretary as that of “overarching the whole structure of the Council but without final authority.” The Christian Century, LXVII, No. 50 (12 13, 1950), 1475–1476Google Scholar.

21 Lipset, Seymour M., “Religion in America: What Religious Revival?” Columbia University Forum, Winter, 1959, pp. 17–21Google Scholar; Berger, Peter L., The Noise of Solemn Assemblies (Garden City, 1961)Google Scholar; Marty, Martin E., The New Face of American Religion (New York, 1959)Google Scholar; Winter, Gibson H., The Suburban Captivity of the Churches (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

22 Marty, , op. cit., pp. 93, 100Google Scholar. See also: Rowland, Stanley, “Suburbia Buys Religion,” The Nation, CLXXXIII, No. 4 (07 28, 1956), 78–80Google Scholar.

23 Marty, , op. cit., p. 77Google Scholar.

24 Lenski, Gerhard, The Religious Factor (Garden City, 1961), pp. 317–318Google Scholar.

25 Herberg, Will, Protestant—Catholic—Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Garden City, 1960), pp. 124–125Google Scholar.

26 Baltzell, E. Digby, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America (New York, 1964), p. 300Google Scholar.

27 Morgan, Richard E., The Politics of Religious Conflict: Church and State in America (New York, 1969), pp. 130–131Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., p. 132.

29 The Inter-Church News, June/July, 1963, pp. 6–7.

30 The New York Times, December 4, 1964; Christianity Today, IX, No. 7 (01 1, 1965), 362Google Scholar.

31 Wedel, Cynthia O., “The Church and Social Action,” The Christian Century, LXXXVII, No. 32 (08 12, 1970), 961Google Scholar.

32 Olson, Mancur J. Jr, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 50–51 (italics added)Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., p. 61.

34 Cavert, Samuel McCrea, Church Cooperation and Unity in America: A Historical Review, 1900–1970 (New York, 1970), p. 31Google Scholar.