Charles M. Sheldon’s legacy–an assessment
Susan Wharton Gates, The Enduring Legacy of In His Steps, Rediscovering The Heart Of Public Administration: The Normative Theory Of In His Steps (Ph.D. Dissertation, 1998)
Notwithstanding the uncontested popularity of In His Steps, it is [Walter] Rauschenbusch, not Sheldon, who is remembered by church historians as personifying the social gospel movement. Rauschenbusch was the systematic thinker, the purist arguing for a high Social Gospel. In contrast, Sheldon is remembered as the mass propagandist for the low Social Gospellow in the sense that Sheldons evangelical skirts were showing. Because he learned how to be and write of the people, it was Sheldons pious nonsense, with its powerful ethical thumb rule of doing as Jesus would do, that would capture the hearts and imagination of the Progressive era. A critique in the London Spectator dated June 3, 1899 says it well:
There are few dogmas in his sermons . . . his moral is so carelessly wrapped up that it bursts through the paper. Yet there is something curiously Apostolic about this narrative method . . . we think the public buys them [the books] because it agrees with them. These books illustrate a rule of thumb for the production of a good life and this is what the average man wants.
But the so-called rule of thumb drew criticism from Sheldons gospel peers because it did not go far enough. Rauschenbusch criticized the imitation of Christ theme saying it created no ideal of human society, demanded no transformation of social institutions, produced no collective enthusiasms, and furnished no doctrinal basis for a public morality.
Yet the simple theme endured. To commemorate the 70th year since publication, one author reflected on the continuing puzzle of the books mass appeal. Offering simple solutions for complex problems, it came out of an age of reform when idealists wanted to clean up politics, rid the cities of their slums, and find a personal answer to the moral confusion they knew existed in their lives.
Whatever the final publication tally, In His Steps had (and continues to have) broad influence. Perhaps most telling is that the prophet was not rejected by his own. Following publication of In His Steps, members of Central Congregational took the pledge to do as Jesus would do. An 1899 article in the Topeka Capital reported that, Those who have taken the pledge met the close of each of the six communion services held during the year and relate the experiences and ask questions and sing and pray together. To which Sheldon added: These consecration services are growing in usefulness and power and the church is better in every way on account of them. The pledge is purely voluntary and those who take it do not judge those who are not ready to do so. At every meeting, so far, additions have been made to the number who are willing to take the pledge. Other churches and endeavor societies are beginning to take the pledge and try to live it out in business and politics and everywhere.
The same year, the Topeka State Journal reported that a new United Christian Party had embraced the principle that We believe in direct legislation of the people, and in order to make a government from God through Christ, we should be governed in all things, lawmaking included, by the standard, What would Jesus do?
Sheldon had particular appeal in England, the source of millions of pirated copies of In His Steps. As remembered some 70 years later, Sheldon made all other popular writers of his day seem small. . . . In England they call him the Great Devouring Sheldon. In His Steps has become a flood, and has swept over Great Britain as if a vacuum had been preparing for it for a thousand years. But his millions of readers are only part of the story. In His Steps has been an abundant pulpit theme. . . . Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists have praised it, published it, preached it. In England, elections have been carried by it. Further, one town council in England reportedly installed the pledge of What would Jesus do? as the criteria in public decision-making.
[In America,] writing for The Saturday Review, commentator Eric Goldman in 1953 cited In His Steps along with The Federalist Papers and Uncle Toms Cabin as one of the volumes that had a substantial role in changing America during a particular period. In a decade swinging for reform, it reached as many as 20 million Americans with its reformers insistence that Christianity means not fear of God but love of the distressed.
The impact of the best-seller on nobodys best-seller list should not be underestimated. Concludes White, Sheldon and In His Steps deserve to be studied in college, universities and seminaries. The low Social Gospel intersected the popular culture of its day to a degree that must be taken seriously . . . What the popular mind proposes need not be disposed of by the sophisticated mind, but rather become the subject for teaching and learning. Cordova is also mindful of Sheldons ability to draw forth the needed combination of both individual and social reform. Since the Social Gospel contributed to Progressivism, the New Freedom, the New Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society, perhaps Sheldons work as the chief popular propagandist for the movement and as a daily reformer in his own life should not be overlooked as unrealistic or impractical.
How to explain the uncontested popularity of In His Steps? By all accounts, it was a sentimental story written by a so-so writer with nothing more to offer his readers than an axiom simple enough for a child to learn and apply. And yet it inspired millions of readers in numerous countries and fueled an unprecedented period of heart-felt social reform and active citizenship here at home.
Because the axiom what would Jesus do is not prescriptive or legalistic, it has great power to both transform and to motivate. Because it is highly contextual, it survives religious and theoretical fashion. And because it is action-oriented, it has the power to unite people who may have little or nothing in common. Not bad for a four-word thumb rule.
