Charles Clayton Morrison (1874–1966) was an American

Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

minister and

Christian socialist Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe cap ...

. Born in

Harrison, Ohio Harrison is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. The city is located in the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky metropolitan area. The population was 9,897 at the 2010 census, and was estimated in 2019 to be 11,896. History Harrison was l ...

, he attended high school in

Jefferson, Iowa Jefferson is a city in, and the county seat of Greene County, Iowa, United States, along the Raccoon River, North Raccoon River. The population was 4,182 at the time of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is the home of the Mahanay Me ...

Drake University Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, law, and pharmacy. Drake's law school is among the 25 oldest in the United States. Hi ...

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

, and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He served as minister at the Monroe Street Church in Chicago, which in 1906, adopted "Open Membership," allowing unimmersed Christians to join the church. This view of baptism was developed in his first book ''The Meaning of Baptism'' (1914). It was in 1908, when Morrison was still a young minister, that he purchased the foundering ''

Christian Century ''The Christian Century'' is a Christian magazine based in Chicago, Illinois. Considered the flagship magazine of US mainline Protestantism, the monthly reports on religious news; comments on theological, moral, and cultural issues; and review ...

'' magazine in Chicago in 1908. At the time of his purchase, the magazine was a

journal. Within a decade he had broadened the journal's reach by offering a broadly Protestant perspective. As he did this, he added the subtitle "An Undenominational Journal of Religion." With donations and gradually increasing subscribership, the magazine survived and prospered under his editorship until his retirement in 1947. During Morrison's stewardship in the 1930s and 1940s, the Christian Century was accused of being antisemitic. It published articles opposing American intervention in World War II for the benefit of the Jews persecuted under the Nazis; arguing moral equivalence between an alleged Jewish-nationalist crucifixion of Jesus and the Nazi persecution of Jews; condemning American Jews for maintaining their distinct identity; and criticizing Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, for allegedly exaggerating

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. As late as 1944 the magazine published articles such as "A Reply to Screamers" by Fred Eastman which admonished the suggestion that there was a moral obligation for the United States to aid in the plight of European Jews being murdered during

. Marty, writing about the 1940s, described the ''Christian Century'' at that time as being an "

anti-Zionist Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine ...

" publication.Modern American Religion: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago Press, 1999, p. 189. Morrison became a well-known spokesman for liberal

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

. He supported the

ecumenical movement Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...

, particularly the establishment of the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...

and the

National Council of Churches The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the Uni ...

Notable quotes

*"''The Christian church is a society of sinners. It is the only society in the world membership in which is based upon the single qualification that the candidate shall be unworthy of membership.''" References: W. Clark Gilpin, "Morrison, Charles Clyton (1874-1966), in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Edited by Douglas A. Foster, et al. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Company, 2004), pp. 545–546.

References

1874 births 1966 deaths American Christian socialists American magazine editors People from Harrison, Ohio

Morrison Morrison may refer to: People * Morrison (surname), people with the Scottish surname Morrison * Morrison Heady (1829–1915), American poet * Morrison Mann MacBride (1877–1938), Canadian merchant Places in the United States * Morrison, Colorad ...

American Disciples of Christ Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy Journalists from Ohio {{US-reli-bio-stub