ABSTRACT
In this chapter we now turn to investigate the major ideas that came together in the closing decades of the nineteenth century to form the core of social gospel thought. These major concepts were: (1) the acceptance of evolutionism; (2) faith in inevitable progress; (3) an optimistic perspective on human nature; (4) belief that the Kingdom of God was to be an earthly utopia; and (5) the idea that America was to be the place where the Kingdom would be first established, serving then as a model to the rest of the world.
