This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGES 99Emphasizing the vital interconnection between church and society, the economistRichard T. Ely touted one of the key principles of the Christian socialistmovement in England: the idea that “the real English Church . . . is the Englishnation.” 57 Like William Reed Huntington, Ely longed for the creation of a nationalchurch, allied with the government, that would foster an activist religious ethosin the United States. For the right-thinking and truly dedicated Christian, he wrotein 1899, “salvation means . . . a never-ceasing attack on every wrong institution,until the earth becomes a new earth, and all its cities, cities of God.” 58 AnotherEpiscopalian who joined Ely in affirming the importance of Christian socialismwas the priest William Dwight Porter Bliss. A contributor to the founding ofseveral organizations, including the Church Association for the Advancement ofthe Interests of Labor, Bliss defined Christian socialism as “the application tosociety of the way of Christ” and the creation of “a socialism based on Christ.” 59A disciple of Bliss and a professor at Wellesley College, Vida Scudder wasarguably the most influential promoter of Christian socialist ideas in the earlytwentieth century. The author of numerous articles and books, she insisted on thecompatibility of biblical teaching and socialist tenets. A socialist society wouldbe in harmony with the kingdom that God intended to establish on earth, shemaintained, for it would allow working people the freedom to seek and to satisfytheir need for “union with the Eternal.” 60 Scudder mixed radical political viewswith a fondness both for the mysticism of the Middle Ages (when Western societywas formally united under the authority of the church) and for Anglo-Catholicsacramentalism. She was intensely involved in the work of the Society of theCompanions of the Holy Cross, a group of Episcopal laywomen dedicated tointercessory prayer and active engagement in the social problems of the day. Attheir meetings, the Companions gathered not only to pray together and to studythe Bible but also to hear reports about workers’ strikes and to offer support tolabor unions. 61 Scudder’s theological convictions, like those of many Episcopalianscommitted to Christian socialism, were based on the doctrine of the incarnation.The fact that God had become incarnate in human flesh indicated thatthere was no separation between the social and the spiritual dimensions of theChristian faith. 62INDIAN MISSIONSThe hope of obtaining land had brought the first group of European coloniststo America in the seventeenth century, and that same dream continued to impeltheir descendants westward in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Followingthe acquisition of vast amounts of territory between the Mississippi River and thePacific coast in the 1840s, white Americans quickly sought to take possession ofand exploit those western areas. In concert with the expansion of the UnitedStates, Christian missionaries also began to evangelize native peoples in the territoriesof the upper Midwest.One of the most notable of those missionaries was James Lloyd Breck, who