The three eras of the College “Y”
John Mott’s student delegation to Mt Hermon 1886
We’ve already talked about the emergence the College YMCA as a movement that came to dominate the religious life of American universities in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
David Setran outlines three distinct eras in this movement’s development.
1. Student Evangelism 1877-1888
The movement began in 1858 with a singular commitment to student evangelism.The movement in its earliest years aimed squarely at saving collegiate souls and training students to share the Christian faith with others on the campus, in local communities and across the globe.
Under the leadership of Luther D. Wishard (1877-1888), the YMCA maintained a strong commitment to an evangelical faith. It’s activities were prayer, Bible study and evangelism as it spread to the majority of then nation’s institutions of higher learning.
The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM) emerged out of the College “Y” in 1886 and inspired thousands of students take up the challenge of world missions.
2. Muscular Christianity 1888-1915
The movement grew both numerically and in influence under the leadership of John R. Mott. There was an emerging desire to pursue, not primarily student salvation, but rather the development of character and service.
Promoting a “muscular Christianity” that was increasingly common among Protestants, the faith championed by college YMCA leaders was grounded self-consciously in action rather than theology, behavior rather than belief.
The YMCA found itself quite at home within the university culture.
YMCA chapters in this era provided valuable student housing, recreational, and employment services for local campuses, this meeting significant institutional needs and facilitating an enhanced reputation among students and university administrators.
3. Social Reconstruction 1915-1934
Under the leadership of David R. Porter, the college association made substantial revisions of policy and practice.
Fostered by a new affiliation with the forces of liberal Protestantism and progressive education, the organization substituted attempts to secure Christian character and service with aspirations toward the construction of a new Christianized world.
Students were directed toward a thoughtful engagement with vexing social issues of war, race and economic justice.
Devoted to intellectual work bathed in the social sciences, the organization set forth an expansive agenda that sought to raise a “prophetic minority” of socially radical students poised to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
Combined with the new competition from other Christian groups and from the universities themselves (in the provision of social and religious student services), these changes sponsored a rapid numerical downturn and hastened the decline of the organization nationwide.
The YMCA’s monopoly was over. Its spectacular collapse was imminent.
“The College ”Y“: Student Religion in the Era of Secularization” (David P. Setran)
