The Kingdom movement was the name used by US Christians in the 1890s who wished to carry out improvements in society. The name was later changed to the Social Gospel.[ citation needed ]
An early national figure in the Social Gospel movement was Washington Gladden, the minister of a Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio, in 1882. He was an outspoken critic of laissez-faire economics. A few years later, another Congregationalist minister, George D. Herron, travelled around the US giving a sermon on "The Message of Jesus for Men of Wealth," a condemnation of wealth and its acquisition. He believed that state socialism was the only Christian answer to the conflict between capital and labour and mounted a vocal attack against capitalism and the laissez-faire system. He argued that capitalism was based on the sinfulness of human greed and self-interest. His dream was to build "the Kingdom of God" on this earth, which led to the name of the Kingdom Movement. [1]
The term "Social Gospel" did not come into common use until the twentieth century. [2] As one historian has said, "In the mid-1890s the most prominent manifestation of what we now call the Social Gospel movement was the Kingdom movement." [2]