the ancient evils of self-interest and competition. Those foundations made capitalism incompatible with Christianity. He declared: “The trial in progress is Christ versus Cain. The decision to which the times are hastening us is, Shall Christ or Cain reign in our American civilization?” Christians could not ignore their responsibility.

Herron campaigned for socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs. In 1901, he helped organize the Socialist Party of America. He was not the only minister to become a socialist either. One historian estimated that between 5 and 25 percent of all mainline Protestant clergy were socialist party members or voted for the party in the first three decades of the 20th century. Congregationalist minister Franklin Monroe Sprague wrote Socialism from Genesis to Revelation in 1892. John Spargo, a Methodist minister, becamea socialist educator. Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister, ran for president of the United States as a socialist candidate from 1928 to 1948. Charles Vail, a Universalist minister, was an important socialist writer. African Americans, both outside and inside of the socialist party, also demanded fairer economic systems that affected other facets of life, pushing white Christians and socialists towards a “new abolitionism.”

Socialism attracted Christians because of the growing influence of the social gospel in the U.S. and its social interpretation of sin and salvation. Inequality was a social sin and Christians were responsible for addressing it. Yet the answer was not in the promise of a singular saved soul but the remaking of society to be more just. This justice had to be achieved through reforming institutions