Written by Charles Sheldon, “In His Steps” was written as propaganda for the social gospel, and resulted in a complete Utopia, in that Sheldon’s imagination led him to believe and write that should just a hundred church members in some remote town adopt Sheldon’s own morals, they could effect nothing less than a revolution throughout the nation.
One of the Charles’ worst deficiencies is the lack of any kind of Creed, which he totes as a benefit, saying that, somehow, by the people asking “What would Jesus do?” which is the oft repeated motto of the entire book, would result in people’s lives getting much better, even if they had no clue as to what he would do. And his lack of any creed results in people having no way to figure it out. The result is that people end up doing whatever they feel they ought to, which traditional Christianity warns of. Christianity does have a creed, which is to do what the bible says to, and it contains the teachings of Christ, which Sheldon and his characters seem perfectly content to ignore.
A major example of a character going against Jesus when wondering what he would do is Virginia, a young heiress who donates the modern day equivalent of 18.6 million dollars to a failing Newspaper. The newspaper is failing because the owner and editor of it has decided to do what he feels he ought to do, resulting in a newspaper without a Sunday edition (they still have a Monday edition, so people must be working on Sunday, though that isn’t addressed) no advertisements that include anything suggestive at all, like liquor of tobacco, who were pretty much the only advertisers back in 1896, no political recommendations, no reports on personal or corporate scandals, and no reports on violent crime. And all this based purely on how Norman, the Editor of the newspaper, felt Jesus would do, without so much of a glance at a bible or his pastor, not that the pastor would’ve helped, because he doesn’t care for it either, despite it being the record of Jesus’ life. So Norman, going bankrupt, asks for help, and receives it from Virginia.
Virginia had been eaten up by guilt because of her immense wealth, all of which was inherited by herself, not earned. She felt like she was sinful for being rich while other people were poor, and so ends up spending enormous sums on projects like Norman’s newspaper. When he asked for help, he simply asked for the money to keep going with his plan, which has already definitively bankrupted him. So Virginia gives away something between a third and a half of her wealth to a project that has already failed. Of course, thanks to Sheldon’s dreams, the newspaper then turns a profit, and we are told that “… it is one of the most interesting and remarkable papers ever printed in the United States.” Well, how can this be? It already failed, we know that, and it has no news of interest known to the world at large, so how can this be? What happened? Even Charles fails to conjure a reason this time, and it seems that, as far as we know, all laws of the free market and people’s interest have completely upended themselves.
This is but one instance of “In His Steps” being, quite simply, low level propaganda for the social gospel, which is a socialist take on Christianity, and as we see here, is just as nonsensical as standard socialism.
School Essays 