Review of: "The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline," by Bill  Douglas

Douglas, Bill

English

Dada/Surrealism

The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline

Review of:  The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline,  by Bill  Douglas

Iowa Research Online

The Annals of Iowa 
Volume 73 Number 1 (Winter 2014) pps. 83-85 
The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline 
Bill Douglas 
ISSN 0003-4827 
Copyright © 2014 State Historical Society of Iowa. This article is posted here for personal use, 
not for redistribution. 
Recommended Citation 
Douglas, Bill. "The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline." The 
Annals of Iowa 73 (2014), 83-85. 
Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0003-4827.12049 
Hosted by Iowa Research Online 
Book Reviews and Notices       83 
 In the book’s introduction, Tishler provides a marvelously concise 
yet thorough biographical overview of Jens Jensen. Readers who are 
new to Jensen would be well advised to linger over these value-added 
pages before jumping into his tantalizing collection of writings. 
 
 
The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline, by Elesha 
Coffman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. x, 213 pp. Illustra-
tion, notes, index. $27.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Bill Douglas lives and works in Des Moines. Much of his reading, 
research, and writing focuses on Iowa’s religious history. 
A July 23, 2013, New York Times article surprisingly waded into the 
world of religious historiography, reporting its new emphasis on 
the twentieth-century U.S. Protestant mainline. Among the books the 
article cited was this book about the Christian Century, by Elesha Coff-
man, who teaches at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. 
 Probably the preeminent liberal Protestant journal of the past cen-
tury—only Christianity and Crisis would challenge it—The Christian 
Century postulated, and expected to attain, an ecumenical, progressive 
and irenic vision of Christianity that, Coffman argues, depended on 
cultural capital—mass acceptance of its viewpoints was seldom forth-
coming. Adept at using historians beyond the usual religious subset, 
Coffman invokes David Plotke’s argument that the New Deal was 
created, and continued by conscious effort, to answer the question, 
“How did the mainline become the mainline?” 
 The Christian Century had its nineteenth-century roots in Iowa as 
a Disciples of Christ publication, The Christian Oracle. As Coffman as-
tutely points out, Disciples lacked the organizational apparati of most 
Protestant denominations and depended on print for coherence (that, 
and public debates). Charles Clayton Morrison, chiefly responsible for 
the journal’s dominance, also had roots in Disciples Iowa. He preached 
his first sermon as a teenager in Red Oak, attended Drake University 
and its divinity school, and fell under the spell of H. O. Breeden, pas-
tor of Central Christian Church of Des Moines. In 1894 Breeden’s lec-
ture program brought the Hindu leader Vivekananda to Des Moines; 
for unearthing such details, Iowa historians owe Coffman gratitude. 
 The Christian Oracle became The Christian Century at the turn of the 
century and with its move to Chicago; Morrison became editor in 1908. 
He slowly realized that the magazine’s survival required delinking 
from the Disciples. By 1920 he had charted a wider course champion-
ing liberal Protestant causes, especially prohibition, pacifism, and 
church unity. (It is easy to forget that prohibitionism was a Progressive 
84      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
mainstay and, with rare exceptions, such as Wallace Short of Sioux City, 
a required trait among Protestant ministers.) Morrison’s legalistic 
brand of pacifism championed William Borah and the Kellogg-Briand 
Treaty; in retrospect, banning war seems not to have taken hold. Coff-
man offers fascinating details about Morrison’s courtship of Reinhold 
Niebuhr, whom Morrison recognized as an intellectual prodigy, for a 
full-time position at the Century; Niebuhr was dissuaded by Kirby Page 
(another Drake Divinity School graduate), whose socialist mass-based 
pacifism resonated more with Niebuhr at the time.  
 Niebuhr, still a contributing editor, dominates the 1930s narrative; 
surprisingly for writers for a liberal publication, neither Morrison nor 
Niebuhr supported FDR in 1932. Morrison’s continuing prohibitionism 
led him to opt for Hoover; Niebuhr, with his lingering socialism, sup-
ported Norman Thomas. In perhaps the most famous exchange in 
Christian Century history, Reinhold’s brother H. Richard extolled the 
virtue of nonintervention, while Reinhold advocated activism; Coff-
man parses the theological differences well. A harsh review of Moral 
Man and Immoral Society and differing evaluations of the crisis in Eu-
rope eventually led to Reinhold’s bitter break with the Century and his 
founding of Christianity and Crisis.  
 I was persuaded by Coffman’s argument that the Century repre-
sented mainline Protestantism, but needed more explanation about 
why Morrison’s often eccentric positions did not jeopardize that posi-
tion. After his retirement, for an anniversary edition, Morrison went 
on an anti–John Dewey rant, and his editorial opposing Kennedy’s 
candidacy was rejected (the Century’s new conservative rival, Christi-
anity Today, printed it).  
 In her chapter on postwar ecumenism, Coffman makes a rare mis-
step, citing as evidence an advertisement for a book that seems to have 
had little influence; publications routinely accept advertising that may 
not reflect editorial policy. Otherwise, this good book deserves a better 
index: H. O. Breeder, Vivekananda, and Glenn Clark are omitted, and 
one suspects a less Iowa-centric check would reveal more. For Iowa 
readers, it is worth noting that the Century’s popular series, “Twelve 
Great Churches,” in 1951 included two Iowa congregations: Ames’s 
Collegiate Methodist Church and Decorah’s Washington Prairie Lu-
theran Church. 
 In Susan Glaspell’s short story “‘Finality’ in Freeport,” radicals 
push for the public library to obtain a book on higher criticism, leading 
to a storm of controversy. When the campaign is finally successful, 
the book sits on the shelves unread, but finally a prominent opponent 
of the book is caught checking it out. He protests that he must read it 
Book Reviews and Notices       85 
as it is on his Sunday School’s reading list. Without citing Glaspell, 
Coffman argues for a similar influence for The Christian Century: often 
the far-out becomes the new norm. 
 
 
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928–1933, by Glen Jean-
sonne. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. xxi, 539 pp. Illustrations, 
notes, bibliography, index. $60.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer Cal Coquillette is assistant professor of history emeritus at the Uni-
versity of Dubuque. He is the author of two articles in the Annals of Iowa (1999 
and 2000) on President Herbert Hoover’s economic policies. 
Glen Jeansonne’s account of the Herbert Hoover presidency, 1928–
1933, challenges history’s view of Hoover as one of the nation’s worst 
presidents. Historians generally agree that Hoover and his administra-
tion were mostly ineffectual in combating the first years of the Great 
Depression. Following the stock market crash of 1929, Hoover became 
a victim of economic circumstance and a subject of ridicule. In part, 
that was attributable to a reticent, indeed dour, personality, a disdain 
for politics, and a desire to work behind the scenes through committees, 
commissions, and conferences. It is little wonder, then, that he is often 
perceived as a do-nothing president. Jeansonne, following exhaustive 
research in the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, 
Iowa, concludes that “Hoover was a great man and, more importantly, 
a good man, but his presidency was only a partial success” (466). 
 By the time Hoover became president, he enjoyed an international 
reputation. He was born in West Branch, Iowa, orphaned at age 9, and 
20 years later had accumulated a fortune as a mining engineer abroad. 
He had served as Food Relief Administrator following World War I 
and as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge 
during the 1920s. He became nationally prominent as the federal gov-
ernment’s point man dealing with the great Mississippi River flood of 
1927. Although he never held an elective office until November 1928, 
Herbert Hoover was a household name with an enviable record of ac-
complishment. If ever there was a chief executive poised to deal with 
an economic crisis, or any crisis for that matter, Hoover seemed to be 
the right man for the time. 
 The Great Depression, however, called for both exceptional politi-
cal skills and imagination, both of which Hoover lacked. While farm 
and tariff legislation consumed excessive amounts of his time, as Jean-
sonne notes, perhaps that was indicative of his propensity to study the 
trees and miss the forest of the deteriorating economy. Meanwhile, 
the Federal Reserve, today’s economic stabilizer, was then timid and 


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