Matthew S. Hedstrom. The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century.

Extract

In 1915 Frank Laubach—having studied theology at Union Theological Seminary before receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia—headed off to the Philippines to serve as a Congregational missionary to the Islamic Moro people. Having discarded the conservative theology of his Baptist youth, Laubach's evangelistic passion was, to quote Matthew S. Hedstrom, “amplified by the intellectual and imperial swagger of pre-Great War liberalism” (p. 215). By 1930 Laubach realized he had failed, his Christian message poisoned by his sense of cultural superiority. Desperate to remake himself, he immersed himself in Christian contemplative literature. He also asked a local religious leader if they could study the Qurʾān together. The result was a spiritual awakening in which Laubach replaced “the hubris of his early missionary zeal” with “the humbler mystic's search for the presence of God,” all the while seeking to match the “submission to God he found in Islam” (pp. 216, 215). Over the next few decades Laubach not only wrote books on intercessory prayer, in which he emphasized resources to be found in various religious traditions, but he also became a global leader in literacy education.