Theology and the Social Consciousness / A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to Theology (2nd ed.)

THEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS A STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THEOLOGY BY HENRY CHURCHILL KING PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY IN OBERLIN COLLEGE SECOND EDITION HODDER & STOUGHTON NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1902 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped September, 1902 Reprinted February, 1904; July, 1907; August, 1910; April, 1912.
To the Members of the Harvard Summer School of Theology OF THE YEAR 1901 IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR INTEREST IN THE LECTURES THAT FORMED THE BASIS OF THIS BOOK

There is no attempt in this book to present a complete system of theology, though much of such a system is passed in review, but only to study a special phase of theological thinking. The precise theme of the book is the relations of the social consciousness to theology. This is the subject upon which the writer was asked to lecture at the Harvard Summer School of Theology of 1901; and the book has grown out of the lectures there given. In preparing the book for the press, however, the lecture form has been entirely abandoned, and considerable material added.
The importance of the theme seems to justify a somewhat thorough-going treatment. If one believes at all in the presence of God in history—and the Christian can have no doubt here—he must be profoundly interested in such a phenomenon as the steady growth of the social consciousness. Hardly any inner characteristic of our time has a stronger historical justification than that consciousness; and it has carried the reason and conscience of the men of this generation in rare degree. Having its own comparatively independent development, and yet making an ethical demand that is thoroughly Christian, it furnishes an almost ideal standpoint from which to review our theological statements, and, at the same time, a valuable test of their really Christian quality.
In attempting, then, a careful study of the relations of the social consciousness to theology, this book aims, first, definitely to get at the real meaning of the social consciousness as the theologian must view it, and so to bring clearly into mind the unconscious assumptions of the social consciousness itself; and then to trace out the influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion, and upon theological doctrine. The larger portion of the book is naturally given to the influence upon theological doctrine; and to make the discussion here as pointed as possible, the different elements of the social consciousness are considered separately.