A New Approach.

The most dramatic and fastest-growing intellectual movement of the late nineteenth century originated as a response to two European trends: the rise of evolutionary science and the development of biblical criticism. By the early 1870s a section of American Protestant leadership was beginning to advocate the reconstruction of Christian theology in response to the rapid changes and developments of the period. Several key factors played a role. One of the most important was the overpowering sense of progress and liberation felt by many people as the nineteenth century closed. Progress seemed more and more inevitable as science and technology were harnessed to solve ancient problems. Some people even thought that humanity was evolving into the millennial Kingdom of God. Adaptation was the watchword. As early as 1871 Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous American minister of the period, warned divinity students at...