The Chicago Evangelist Who Held a Gospel Revival To Stop a Strike | Sojourners

The Chicago Evangelist Who Held a Gospel Revival To Stop a Strike

HAYMARKET SQUARE POINT OF ANARCHIST RIOT, MAY, 1886 from the guide book “Picturesque Chicago and guide to the world’s fair” published in 1893 Publisher Lennox Pub. Co. Image via Alamy.

Historian Timothy E.W. Gloege explains in his book Guaranteed Pure that before the events of Haymarket, Christian evangelist Dwight L. Moody conspired with local capitalists such as Cyrus McCormick Jr., one of the managing partners of International Harvester Company, to thwart the 1886 strike altogether. Within the story of the Haymarket affair, we can find a number of political tensions that are still within Christianity today. One major tension still animating Christian discourse is this: What happens when Christians side with the wealthy instead of the poor and working class?

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