ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 focuses on a literal and figurative sea change as sociology made its way from Europe to the United States and became an established academic discipline at the turn of the twentieth century. The early American sociologists, with few exceptions, rejected the European view concerning the secularization of religious beliefs and instead embraced sociology as a mechanism for spreading the Social Gospel, which advocated the equality of all humanity. The two major early schools of sociology at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, under the guidance respectively of Albion Small and Franklin Giddings, were envisioned as institutionalized instruments for ushering in the “kingdom of God” on earth. Christianity played such an important role in their lives that they wanted to transfer their religious beliefs to using sociology as a means to shape society. Sociology was to be a science, but it was to be one that had Christian underpinnings.
