WMU ministry comes full circle

Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) has played a primary role in engaging Southern Baptists in evangelistic social ministry over the last century, says a university professor.

From early in the 20^th century, the Southern Baptist Convention auxiliary combined ideas from the “social gospel” movement with evangelistic zeal to create a unique emphasis on social ministry, said Carol Crawford Holcomb, religion professor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a Baptist-affiliated school in Belton, Texas.

Holcomb recently addressed a regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion.

She presented a paper titled “The Kingdom at Hand: The Social Gospel and the Personal Service Department of Woman’s Missionary Union.”

The professor defined the social gospel as “an ethical/theological movement of the late 19^th century that emerged in response to the challenges of industrialization, urbanization and immigration. It emphasized the social teachings of Jesus, social and individual salvation, the imminence of God and the perfectibility of humanity.”

Many conservative Christians scorned the social gospel, arguing it would water down the call to Christian conversion and promote a theology of salvation by works.

And while leaders of WMU did not adopt a formal social-gospel theology, the movement influenced the women’s organization started in 1888 from early on, Holcomb said, citing research published in her doctoral dissertation.

She traced the roots of that influence to Fannie E.S. Heck, a North Carolina native who served as national WMU president from 1892 to 1894 and again from 1906 to 1915. Heck was “singularly responsible for establishing a department within WMU that focused attention on social service,” Holcomb maintained.

While many other Southern Baptists insisted social work has secondary to evangelism, Heck presented social service as “an intrinsic part of the missionary enterprise,” Holcomb said.

Southern Baptists’ interest in social work later became influenced by the work of other Christian denominations, particularly the Methodists, she said.

Despite criticism, Southern Baptist women successfully shaped missions and ministry in the 20^th century with their unique blend of evangelism and social ministry, Holcomb concluded.

“History has come full circle,” Holcomb said. “After 90 years, WMU is still invested in the vision of social service initiated by Fannie Heck in 1909.”

(ABP)