Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:13:23.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Shift from Character to Personality in Mainline Protestant Thought, 1935–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Heather A. Warren
Heather A. Warren
Affiliation:
Heather A. Warren is assistant professor of religion at the University of Virginia.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“Growth is as essential in human personality as it is in a stalk of corn,” wrote the pastor of First Community Church, Columbus, Ohio, in 1935. His remark typified the changes underway in mainline American Protestantism as it digested empiricist theology, Christian realism, psychoanalysis, and world events from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. In those years the terms of discourse about what it takes to make a strong democracy gradually shifted from “character”—the traits, attitudes, or behaviors of an individual that publicly express private conviction—to “personality”—the inner, psychodynamic organization of an individual that expresses itself socially in relation to God and other people. Prominent religious educators debated it; pastoral counselors put it into practice. Popularization of psychotherapy in the denominational presses brought the language of “personality” and the psychological dimension of human existence into the lexicon of the mainline churches by the end of World War II. Earlier in the century in the face of mass immigration America's churches had extolled the merits of “character” and “character education” as the chief way for mediating private conviction and public action that would preserve democracy, but in the late 1930s they sounded this theme in the new key of personality: promoting the inner growth and freedom of each individual would safeguard America from moral decay and totalitarian regimes.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 537 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Burkhart, Roy A., “Guiding the Adolescent to Mental Health,” Religious Education 30 (1935): 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Susman, Warren I., “ ‘Personality’ and the Making of Twentieth-Century Culture,” in New Directions in American Intellectual History, ed. Higham, John and Conkin, Paul (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 212–26;Google ScholarHolifield, E. Brooks, A History of Pastoral Care in America: From Salvation to Self-Realization (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983).Google Scholar For examples of those who have written about the related fields of the history of psychology, psychoanalysis, religion and psychology, and American culture in the interwar years see: Hunt, Morton, The Story of Psychology (New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1993);Google ScholarAlexander, Franz G., M.D., and Selesnick, Sheldon T., M.D., The History of Psychiatry: An Evaluation of Psychiatric Thought and Practice from Prehistoric Times to the Present (New York: Harper and Row, 1966);Google ScholarMeissner, W. W., , S.J., M.D., Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984);Google ScholarGraebner, William, The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (Boston: Twayne, 1991).Google Scholar

3. Kett, Joseph F., Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 105–107.Google Scholar

4. McClellan, B. Edward, Schools and the Shaping of Character: Moral Education in America, 1607-Present (Bloomington: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies / Social Science Education and the Social Studies Development Center, Indiana University, 1992), 27, 29.Google Scholar

5. Halttunen, Karen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830–1870. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), especially chapter 4, “Sentimental Culture and the Problem of Etiquette,” 92–123.Google Scholar See also Welter, Barbara, “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18 (1966), 151–74;CrossRefGoogle Scholarand Cott, Nancy F., The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar

6. Danbohm, David B., “The World of Hope”: Progressives and the Struggle for an Ethical Public Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 11, 15.Google Scholar

7. Szasz, Ferenc, “The Stress on ‘Character and Service’ in Progressive America,” Mid- America 63 (1981): 145–56; also cited in Danbohm, “The World of Hope,” 84Google Scholar

8. For details about turmoil internal to the REA see Schmidt, Steven A., A History of the Religious Education Association (Birmingham, Ala.: Religious Education Press, 1983), 90–91. Financial difficulties also led to the ouster of the general secretary who was unable to get the REA out of the red. For more about the dominance of the concept of character in the 1920s and early 1930sGoogle Scholar, see Warren, Heather A., “Character, Public Schooling, and Religious Education, 1920–1934,” Religion and American Culture 7 (1997): 61–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Quick, Edith M., “The Philosophical Outlook for Character Education,” Religious Education 31 (1936): 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Chave, E. J., in “Character and Christian Education: Two Reviews of Dr. Cole's Book,” Religious Education 32 (1937): 64;Google ScholarMyers, A. J., “Some Recent Writings on Character Education,” Religious Education 31 (1936): 192–97;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNelson, Thomas H., “Character Building in the College,” Religious Education 31 (1936): 5–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Artman, J. M. and Jacobs, J. A., “The Significance of Present Trends in the Character Education Movement,” Religious Education 23 (1928): 243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Roback, A. A., The Psychology of Character—With a Survey of Temperament (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1927), xi.Google Scholar

13. Homrighausen, E. G., “The Real Problem of Religious Education,” Religious Education 34 (1939): 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. , Holifield, Pastoral Care in America, 228–29;Google ScholarInbody, Tyron, “History of Empirical Theology,” in Empirical Theology: A Handbook, ed. Miller, Randolph Crump (Birmingham, Ala.: Religious Education Press, 1992), 19.Google Scholar

15. Mackintosh, Douglas Clyde, Theology as an Empirical Science (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 90–99, 140–56; also cited in Holifield, Pastoral Care in America, 228; for more about the significance of the concept of “adjustment,” see Holifield, Pastoral Care in America, 211, 215, 228–31.Google Scholar

16. Inbody, , “History of Empirical Theology,” 19, 23–24;Google ScholarHolifield, , Pastoral Care in America, 229.Google Scholar

17. For example, Ames, Edward S. in “Discussion on Professor Bower's Paper,” Religious Education 34 (1939): 174.Google Scholar

18. Bower, William Clayton, “Reaction and Neglected Values,” Religious Education 32 (1937): 10;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, “The Challenge of Reaction to Liberal Thought,” Religious Education 32 (1937): 123.

19. Bower, , “Challenge of Reaction,” 117, 123.Google Scholar

20. Bower, , “Reaction and Neglected Values,” 5;Google Scholaridem, “Points of Tension between Progressive Religious Education and Current Theological Trends,” Religious Education 34 (1939): 164–72.

21. Cole, Stewart A., “Report of the Chester Discussion Group: The Church and Religious Naturalism,” Religious Education 31 (1936): 102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Bower, , “Reaction and Neglected Values,” 6.Google Scholar

23. Homrighausen, , “Real Problem of Religious Education,” 15.Google Scholar

24. Cole, , “ Chester Discussion Group,” 106;Google ScholarBower, , “Points of Tension,” 169.Google Scholar

25. Hartshorne, Hugh, “The Study of Growth in Religion,” Religious Education 34 (1939): 67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. Hartshorne, Hugh, “Growth in Religion,” Religious Education 34 (1939): 150;CrossRefGoogle Scholar see also idem, “Study of Growth in Religion,” 68.

27. Hartshorne, , “Study of Growth in Religion,” 68.Google Scholar

28. Cole, , “Chester Discussion Group,” 102.Google Scholar

29. Conover, Charles Eugene, “Save Religious Education from Itself!” Christian Century, 13 07 1938, 865.Google Scholar

30. Homrighausen, E. G., “Religious Education vs. the Church,”Christian Century, 29 November 1939, 1465.Google Scholar

31. Bower, , “Reaction and Neglected Values,” 5;Google Scholaridem, “Where Religious Education and Theology Meet,” Religious Education 35 (1940): 18–25; idem, “Points of Tension,” 69–73.

32. Homrighausen, , “Real Problem of Religious Education,” 14;Google ScholarHorton, Walter M. in “Discussion on Professor Bower's Paper,” 175–77.Google Scholar

33. Smith, H. Shelton, “Is Religious Naturalism Enough?” Religious Education 31 (1936): 107–111;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, Faith and Nurture (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), 133.

34. Smith, , Faith, and Nurture, , 38–39, 41–42, 44, 48–49, 87, 132.Google Scholar

35. Smith, , Faith, and Nurture, , 68–69, 71–76, 105, 109.Google Scholar

36. Smith, , Faith, and Nurture, , 43–44, 195–96.Google Scholar

37. Warren, Heather A., Theologians of a New World Order: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Christian Realists, 1920–1948. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997);Google ScholarHulsether, Mark David, “Liberals, Radicals, and Contested Social Thought of Postwar Protestantism: Christianity and Crisis Magazine, 1941–1976.” (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1992);Google ScholarCavert, Samuel McCrea, The American Churches in the Ecumenical Movement, 1900–1968. (New York: Association, 1968);Google ScholarFox, Richard Wightman, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography (New York: Pantheon, 1985).Google Scholar

38. Carpenter, Joel A., Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 24–25.Google Scholar

39. Hunt, , Story of Psychology, 314.Google Scholar

40. Hunt, , Story of Psychology, 564; also in Alexander and Selesnick, History of Psychiatry, 217.Google Scholar

41. Alexander, and Selesnick, , History of Psychiatry, 298.Google Scholar

42. Hunt, , Story of Psychology, 565.Google Scholar

43. For changes in corporate life and its relation to pastoral counseling see Holifield, Pastoral Care in America, 268. See also Marchand, Roland, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), especially chap. 10, “The Therapeutics of Advertising,” and the bibliographical essay.Google Scholar

44. Cabot, Richard C. and Dicks, Russell L., The Art of Ministering to the Sick (New York: Macmillan, 1936).Google Scholar

45. Cabot, Richard C., The Meaning of Right and Wrong (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 5–6. Cabot and Dicks referred to this book frequently in The Art of Ministering to the Sick.Google Scholar

46. Cabot, and Dicks, , Ministering to the Sick, 18.Google Scholar

47. Cabot, , Right, and Wrong, , 92, 95;Google ScholarCabot, and Dicks, , Ministering to the Sick, 18, 378 (emphasis in original).Google Scholar

48. Cabot, , Right, and Wrong, , xs 75.Google Scholar

49. Cabot, , Right, and Wrong, , 73, 74–75.Google Scholar

50. Cabot, , and Dicks, , Ministering to the Sick, 19, 224, 378.Google Scholar

51. Holifield, , Pastoral Care in America, 251–56.Google Scholar

52. May, Rollo, The Art of Counseling: How to Gain and Give Mental Health (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1939), 44–45, 51, 53, 191.Google Scholar

53. May, , Art of Counseling, 70–74 (emphasis in original).Google Scholar

54. May, , Art of Counseling, 179, 182, 198, 200–201, 204, 206.Google Scholar

55. For example, Bean, Kenneth S., “When the Character-Builders Work Together,” Christian Advocate, 4 February 1937, 114;Google ScholarMrs. Wilson, Byron, “Building the House of Character,” Christian Advocate, 9 March 1939, 232;Google ScholarBaublitz, E. Raymond, “A CCC Chaplain's Work,” The Lutheran, 2 March 1938, 4–5;Google ScholarCrocker, John, “The Importance of Church Boarding Schools,” The Living Church, 15 August 1943, 8–9.Google Scholar

56. Young, William Lindsay, “Educational Chaos and the Way Out,” The Presbyterian Tribune, 2 03 1939, 9–10.Google Scholar

57. Ballard, J. Hudson, “Overcoming Our Inferiorities,” The Christian Advocate, 16 January 1941, 83;Google Scholaridem, “The Tensions of Life,” The Christian Advocate, 20 February 1941, 241; idem, “Qualifications for Counseling,” The Christian Advocate, 24 June 1943, 779.

58. Dicks's, Among essays published between July and November in The Christian Advocate in 1944 were: “What Is Trouble?” (13 July), 6–7;Google Scholar“Prayer and Resentment” (3 August), 954;Google Scholar“On Telling a Person He Has Cancer” (5 October), 1246.Google Scholar

59. Rudisill, Earl S., “Personal Problem Clinic,” The Lutheran, 7 11 1945, 29.Google ScholarSubsequent titles included “Shy” (7 November 1945), “Guidance” (21 11 1945)Google Scholar, and “Disobedient Daughter” (23 November 1945).Google Scholar

60. “Mental Hygiene: Noted Psychiatrist to Address Conference at Sewanee,” The Living Church, 9 07 1941, 3.Google Scholar

61. Very Rev. Hoag, Victor, “Talks with Teachers: Progressive Education,” The Living Church, 8 04 1945, 4.Google Scholar

62. Russell, Earl S., “Personality Development in Children,” The Lutheran, 9 02 1938, 20;Google ScholarBarnes, C. Rankin, “Dr. Chave's Book on Child Study,” The Living Church, 25 01 1939, 104.Google Scholar

63. Hunter, G. C., “For Leaders and Young People,” The Presbyterian Tribune, 5 01 1939, 24;Google ScholarHiltner, Seward, “Dealing with Personal Problems,” The Presbyterian Tribune, 16 02 1939, 25;Google ScholarClarke, James E., “A Guide for Guides,” The Presbyterian Tribune, 22 06 1939, 22.Google Scholar

64. Clarke, James E., “Religion and Mental Health,” The Presbyterian Tribune, 08 1941, 20;Google ScholarTrauer, Amos John, “Springs of Creative Living,” The Lutheran, 26 03 1941, 18.Google Scholar

65. Keller, Lloyd M., “Helping Ministers to Be Helpful,” The Lutheran, 11 04 1945, 28;Google ScholarBarnes, C. Rankin, “Pastoral Care,” The Living Church, 25 03 1945, 20;Google ScholarBallard, J. Hudson, “For Pastors,” The Presbyterian Tribune, 09 1945, 17–19;Google Scholaridem, “The Cure of Souls,” The Presbyterian Tribune, November 1945, 26–27; extended advertisement for Simpson's book in The Living Church, 4 February 1945, 24–25

66. Ballard, , “For Pastors,” 19.Google Scholar

67. Fosdick, Harry Emerson, Twelve Tests of Character (New York: G. H. Doran, 1923).Google Scholar

68. Miller, Robert Moats, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 275. By the time of Fosdick's death in 1969, over 300,000 copies had sold in hardback alone.Google Scholar

69. Fosdick, Harry Emerson, On Becoming a Real Person (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943), 7, 27 (emphasis in original).Google Scholar

70. Fosdick, , On Becoming a Real Person, 37, 39–44, 80–81, 96.Google Scholar

71. Fosdick, , On Becoming a Real Person, 47, 76, 109, 218.Google Scholar

72. Fosdick, , On Becoming a Real Person, 99.Google Scholar

73. McClellan, , Schools and the Shaping of Character, 81–82.Google Scholar

74. McClellan, , Schools and the Shaping of Character, 79.Google Scholar