Character Building in the North American YMCA

Muscular Christianity

Muscular Christianity had to face negative attitude towards sports and amusements in general.

When sports were seen as worldly amusements, it was no wonder that Evangelicals had a negative attitude towards them. Muscular Christians, instead, saw physical education as a way “to consent to his service, as far as may be, all the powers of the body, soul and spirit⁴⁷.” Because these attitudes were justified by theological doctrines of Calvinism, Pietism and Methodism⁴⁸, the positive attitude had to be based on theological arguments as well.

The first theological justification in the YMCA for amusements and physical education was given at the Second World’s Conference of YMCAs in Geneva in 1858⁴⁹. John H. Gladstone, one leading member of the London YMCA, argued in his presentation that associations should offer good recreational programs to young men and defended his thesis mainly with historical examples and with some Biblical quotations. His argumentation started (following the Evangelical thinking of focusing on heaven instead of earthly matters) from the question whether recreational activities are meant to serve God or ourselves. He also made a distinction between detrimental and innocent recreation that saves people from bad habits. It is in this latter case that YMCAs have some responsibility for their members. There is always a danger that “an ignorant Christian and restrictive and narrow-minded spirit are often obstacles of the Gospel.” Thus, according to Gladstone, a Christian association should avoid extremes and consider three questions. “Whether the situation require them? Does they harm the more important activities? Are its pious members able to sanctify the means which they will adopt?” In relation to the last question, Gladstone mentions that in America and England associations offer reading rooms that have journals and periodicals in order to serve people’s intellectual, social and political benefit. In Germany, people gather to sing to their Lord to show their joy. In Holland they cultivate poems and stories in order to learn how God guides peoples of the earth. Thus, Gladstone’s thesis for the legitimacy of recreation rests a lot on the Christian use of arts.⁵⁰

The Conference adopted the following resolution:

After having examined the question of the need of recreation natural to young men, ought it to occupy the attention of the YMCA? In what measure can the Associations satisfy it?

The delegates recognize that the Associations ought to occupy themselves with this need of recreation, but as sanctifying it - leaving to each association a certain liberty to choose the nature and the mode of recreation according to national taste and local convenience.⁵¹

Seven years later the Fourth World’s Conference adopted a significant resolution that directed YMCA thinking in future.

The Conference considers that a proper combination of a worldly and an eternal profession is the best means of proving a living Christianity

The Conference recommends that the employment of leisure time be devoted to the service of God and considers a diligent study of God’s Word, the visiting of the poor and the sick, and teaching in Sunday Schools as the most appropriate occupations.

The Conference considers it a duty to call the attention of its members to the fact that a strengthening of the physical body through swimming, gymnastics, and such sport, is also a task which the Christian young man ought not to neglect.⁵²

In this resolution, there are several important aspects. First, it recalls of the principle of the Great Command (love God above all and your neighbour as yourself) when it parallels the worldly profession with that of the eternal one. Second, it emphasises the importance of leisure time which was increasing because of new labour legislation. Leisure outside the noble class was a new phenomenon and the YMCA wanted to give models of good leisure. Third, the resolution recognises that the body, created by God, has its legitimate needs and YMCAs should not concentrate solemnly on the soul of young men.

Gladstone’s presentation and the resolutions cited above gave legitimacy to the physical education and leisure activities of the YMCA. Although Germany had a longer tradition of gymnastics, the most important development of YMCA physical education took place in America.

In 1866, the New York YMCA, which was the pioneer of physical education, accepted the following statement of its mission: “The object of this Association shall be the improvement of the spiritual, moral, social and physical condition of young men⁵³.” This was the first time when the idea of the Four-fold Programme was included in a mission statement of any YMCA⁵⁴. Few years later, in 1869, the Association Building was erected with a gymnasium, library, class-, reading- and social rooms⁵⁵.

The physical activities were seen as an extension of the social work of the YMCA. In this sense, it was only an enlargement of the classical Christian diakonia. However, the fundamental question was “Will the gymnasium secularize the Association, or can the Association Christianize the gymnasium⁵⁶?” The New York Association defended their program by noting that associations often failed to hold members once converted - young men away from home needed wholesome recreation. If the YMCA did not give it, they would fall into temptation. Thus, physical work was seen as one method in the ‘post-evangelisation’ work of the association.⁵⁷

The Four-fold programme, that replaced general evangelism, emphasised the well being of the whole human. In practice, this had meant a focus on physical education and education in general.

Social Gospel

The Social Gospel movement⁵⁸ gave another legitimisation to the expansion of recreational work. It can be said that it widened the Four-fold ideology from individual welfare to welfare of the community. When the basic idea of the Four-fold Programme was to develop a symmetrical man, this could not be done in a vacuum and, thus, this led to focus more fully on those conditions, which affect individuals. The significant change in thinking was the shift from reactive philanthropy to preventive social reformism.

The main idea of the Social Gospel was to implement Jesus’ social teachings in society. For its proponents, the Kingdom of God was not only transcendent celestial city. The whole earth is God’s creation and it should follow the law of God. The proponents of the movement held that in Jesus, the Kingdom of God had come on earth and salvation was seen as “getting into right relations” with God and neighbour⁵⁹. This led Social Gospel proponents to emphasise the immanent aspect of the Kingdom of God.

The YMCA was slow to get involved with the Social Gospel⁶⁰. One important factor was that the YMCA was governed by business class members who opposed Socialism and everything that sounded like it⁶¹. Another reason was, as Hopkins expressed it, that:

The YMCA. was completely immersed in the task of explicating the fourfold program, which seemed to be the answer to all problems. Its all-round activities were expected to develop good citizenship as well as Christian character: some leaders therefore thought it unnecessary to stress public affairs.⁶²

Student YMCAs paved the way in adoption of the Social Gospel. Already in 1898, John R. Mott had declared a spiritual war on social evils around the world in his address at his home-town, Postville. From then on, the Student Christian Movement started to emphasise social aspects in its Bible study materials⁶³. However, it was only after experiences in the First World War and, especially, Sherwood Eddy’s conversion to Social Gospel that the North American YMCA started to focus on social issues seriously. In this, Social Gospel provided a suitable theology. The idea of an immanent God’s Kingdom where people love each other resonated with the YMCA emphasis on unity. From here on, we can find Social Gospel expressions in many YMCA documents although the Social Gospel in the YMCA seemed to have been a moderate version of it.

The Social Gospel in the YMCA was not a similar terminus technicus as the Four-fold Programme. The impact of Social Gospel was more in the thinking of people and a supply of Christian vocabulary to face social problems. In its focus on these problems, the YMCA remained a middle-class movement. The point of view was mainly that of traditional philanthropy: the thrifty saw they had a moral duty to help the less lucky but social problems were not actually their personal problems. Like in Social Gospel movement in general, there were neglected voices in the YMCA as well. The most significant neglected groups who did not have their own voice heard were women and African-Americans, although there were activities for them as well⁶⁴.

Emergence of the Physical Education

David I. Macleod has argued that the rise of physical education was linked to the urban middle class and its need to protect its lifestyle⁶⁵. He even notes that “this, rather than the better-known Social Gospel, was the churches’ primary reaction to social change⁶⁶.” In addition to this, urbanisation brought the fear that “middle-class boys were growing weak and effeminate⁶⁷”, as Macleod has said it. This turned men to Muscular Christianity, which emphasised male forms of religiosity. In the eve of the North American Civil War was especially “an era of beards and boots⁶⁸.” Along with the later uniform-dressed religious organisations (like the Boys’ Brigades and Scouts), YMCA physical education answered the need of masculinity.

Macleod argues that when the character-building program developed it was legitimated by popular psychology beliefs that the mind is “composed of several major faculties: intellect, emotion, will, and sometimes conscience⁶⁹.” These could be trained, like muscles, through exercise. The philosophy of the character builders was expressed by George J. Fisher in Edinburgh World’s Conference in 1913 as follows:

Body, mind, soul, are one. Character has a physical basis... Brain and muscle are linked together as compactly as a chain of steel. Each muscle, directly or indirectly, is related to a cell in the brain. The initial movement of the muscle causes this brain cell to throw our processes. The more muscles used, the more cells thus stimulated... These motor cells, however, are not isolated or absolutely segregated, but among them are other cells, those which have to do with the higher life of thinking, emotion and willing... Motor cells may empower the cells of the intellect and the soul. That is to say by right bodily training we store up power in the motor brain which can be transferred to our intellects and our wills and our emotions empowering the former and enriching the latter, so that our bodies become the power stations of our higher life.⁷⁰

Although the thinking was based on positivistic-naturalistic anthropology, there was some empirical wisdom in it. If a man is in good condition, his brains get more oxygen and he is not as tired as his fellow in bad condition is. In this sense, muscles influence mental condition, which, in turn, may influence, for example, man’s god-representation⁷¹. However, the important issue is that the idea of a link between muscles, brains and even soul legitimated the YMCA emphasis on physical education as a method of Christian youth work.

The Economic consequences of the physical education programs for associations helped the diffusion of the idea. When the gymnasium had gained legitimacy within the YMCA, the idea could start to spread. The expansion started in the 1880’s in the US. While in 1876 there were only two gymnasiums and three physical directors, ten years later, there were 101 gymnasiums and 35 physical directors. In 1896, the figures were 495 and 220.⁷² The expansion of gymnastics was favoured by the diminishing of revival and of participation in religious meetings. The idea also spread to other countries and the idea of Four-fold work was accepted in Europe as well⁷³. Mayer N. Zald, who looks at the YMCA from the organisation study perspective, underlines the economic opportunity structures in the development of the gymnasium in the YMCA. He argues that traditional collections and philanthropical donations “did not provide much financial stability” and that both residences and gymnasiums stabilised the economic status of YMCAs.⁷⁴

Zald notes that in the first half of the 20^th century business income (= accommodation and gymnasium services to non-members) was almost half of YMCA income. However, the larger the association, the larger role that business income had in its budget. In this sense, the YMCA of the US was economically no more “a membership organisation, since many non-members paid for services”, as Zald puts it.⁷⁵

Traditional evangelism and the Four-fold Programme became two alternate ways of activities in the US. When the New York Association led the development of the Four-fold Programme, the Chicago Association remained in the traditional Evangelical program. Morse describes the difference between these associations with quotating a member of the North American International Committee:

In the year 1870, soon after the New York building had been dedicated, I visited Chicago, and as a beginner in Association work was deeply impressed with the contrast between the building which I had just left in New York, and the one in Chicago, with its very large hall and ample provisions for general evangelistic services for all the community, held there every Sunday. But I found in this Chicago building comparatively little accommodation for the fourfold, distinctive work for young men. These two buildings stood, in 1870, for the two different phases of work then prevalent in the Associations.⁷⁶

World Service of the North American YMCA

The North American YMCA model was largely related to this Four-fold Programme. Since the North American YMCA was the largest and most prosperous, it was inevitable that the model also spread to other parts of the world through their foreign work. In Europe, the model caused controversies, but in other continents, like in South and Central America and Asia, it was an effective tool for adaptation of the movement in these contexts.

The North American movement had established a good secretary education system through two training schools in Chicago and Springfield and these schools trained secretaries from other countries as well. Thus, the American YMCA idea diffused through leadership training, supply of prominent leaders to the World's Alliance and, especially, through the American fraternal secretaries that served round the world starting new YMCAs..

The leaders that the North American YMCA supplied to the World’s Alliance were many. Some of them served as members of various boards and some belonged to the staff. Among them were Luther Wishard, John R. Mott, Walter W. Gethman, Tracy Strong, Edgar M. Robinson, Owen E. Pence, Paul M. Limbert, and numerous others who carried responsibility for the global mission of the YMCA. Especially after 1926, when John R. Mott was elected as a president of the World’s Alliance, American influence increased and tensions between the Alliance and the NAIC were reduced. For example, the three next general secretaries came from the USA⁷⁷.

The foreign work, or as it was later called, World Service⁷⁸, of the North American YMCA had, however, perhaps the most longstanding effects on the mission view of the whole YMCA movement, World’s Alliance included. The foreign work, which started in 1880s, was intimately linked with the Student Volunteer Movement of the YMCA. It was from its ranks that the ‘fraternal secretaries’ as the YMCA foreign workers were called, were recruited. It was the YMCA student movement, which took as a declaration of its purpose “the evangelization of the world in this generation⁷⁹.” It was also among this movement where the policy and practices of the foreign work were developed.⁸⁰

The principles of the foreign work were as follows. First, the task was not general missionary work but work among young men in respective countries. Second, the task was to plant “self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating” indigenous YMCAs. Third, to enter a new field required a call from Evangelical missionaries working in the country. Fourth, fraternal secretaries should have experience in general secretary work and have a university degree. Fifth, the expansion work could be done on a bilateral national basis instead of via central supervision of Geneva.⁸¹

The major foreign fields where the North American YMCA worked during 1888-1955 were Asia, South and Central America, and Europe. In the first two continents, the work was extension work whereas in Europe the work focused on migrants, prisoners of war, refugees and support for the establishment of North American-type city associations.

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