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Like most American success stories, The Christian Century had a humble beginning. According to the oft-retold official account, the intelligent but chronically insolvent periodical was about to go under in 1908. Impending mortgage foreclosure sent it to the sheriff's auction block, where Charles Clayton Morrison, a Disciples of Christ minister and editorial neophyte, redeemed it with a scraped-together payment of $1,500.
So began the saga of man and magazine, together rising to prominence over the next four decades. When Morrison stepped down as editor in June 1947, both Newsweek and Time recapped his career at the top of their religion sections. Newsweek called Morrison a "fiery, forceful man" who had increased from 600 to 40,000 the circulation of "the most important organ of Protestant opinion in the world today." Time lauded the Century as "Protestantism's most vigorous voice" and "a beacon of level-headedness in a fog of misty thinking." [1] Historians' praise for the Century has been just as lavish; Robert Moats Miller, for example, ranks it as "Protestantism's most influential periodical" and Donald Meyer commends it for "keeping the passion vital in the ranks of the ministry." Nearly 3,000 libraries keep the Century on hand for research and leisure reading, more than any other religious magazine can boast.
The centennial of the Century's rebirth marks a fine occasion to revisit its history. Because the Century's story in so many ways parallels that of the Protestant mainline, the narrative becomes a tale of two establishments, each shaping the other. The Century and the mainline grew up together. They speak the same language. Neither is easy to define, but they shed light on each other, illuminating a sector of American religion that—with some notable exceptions—is oddly ignored by contemporary scholarship.
Martin Marty, a contributor to the Century for more than fifty years, once reflected, "The turn of the century in American religion came not in 1901 but in 1908." That year saw the formation of the Federal Council of Churches, the adoption of the Methodist Social Creed, the graduation of Roman Catholicism in America from mission to canonical status, and, of course, the re-founding of The Christian Century. In the Century's case, though, 1908 made less of a difference than one might expect.
For one thing, the magazine already had almost 25 years of history behind it. Founded in Des Moines in 1884 as a Disciples of Christ denominational weekly called the Christian Oracle, it moved to Chicago in 1892 and was re-christened The Christian Century in 1900. Morrison knew much of that history and had participated in it. An Iowa boy, he had come to Chicago in 1898 to serve an urban church and study philosophy under John Dewey at the University of Chicago. He had been among the friends of the Oracle who disdained that moniker and voted for the optimistic new name. Beginning in 1900, he wrote a column for the magazine, "The Christian Life," and he remained a contributor through his assumption of the editorship.
This back-story helps explain why Morrison retained the Century title in 1908, even though some other members of the magazine's circle expressed unease about both its grandiose aspirations and the legacy of failure it carried. The Century had run through four or five editors and nearly as many bankruptcies by the time of Morrison's purchase. Nonetheless, Morrison liked the name and could hardly have been intimidated by its buoyancy. One of his moves as editor was to introduce a column of upbeat news items titled, "The World Is Growing Better."
