George Lippard, Ignatius Donnelly, and the Esoteric Theology of American Labor

DAN MCKANAN

The American labor movement has always had a theology — indeed, many theologies. But it has not always had professional theologians who are credentialed by both academic and ecclesiastical authorities. The Social Gospel movement that began around 1880 has been rightly celebrated for forging an enduring link between American labor and the guild of professional theologians. Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, George Herron, Clarence Skinner, Harry Ward, John Ryan, and Reinhold Niebuhr were genuine allies of labor, and they marshaled the intellectual resources of the Christian tradition on behalf of campaigns for living wages, the eight-hour day, safe working conditions, and an end to child labor. Their efforts in mobilizing both Protestant and Catholic churches helped bring the American labor movement to its pinnacle of influence in the postwar period, and the alliance continues in the work of contemporary theologians who work in solidarity with Interfaith Worker Justice or congregation-based community organizing projects. The Social Gospel, as traditionally defined, was an authentic theology of labor, but it was not the first or only such theology. Nor was it a direct expression of the theological vision of the workers themselves. Social Gospel theology was always a theology of allyship; it expressed the convictions (sometimes moderate, sometimes radical) of middle-class intellectuals whose consciences had been pricked, who wanted to prick the consciences of their middle-class students and parishioners, and who had the power to transform educational and ecclesial institutions. Decades before the Social Creed of the Churches gave definitive expression to Social Gospel theology, another theology of labor — sometimes more militant and often much stranger — could be found on the pages of popular fiction.

In this essay, I explore the works of two labor novelists, George Lippard (1822–54) and Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901). I focus especially on their use of esoteric Christianity as a source of wor