Strong, Josiah

Strong, Josiah

(1847–1916) Protestant religious leader; born in Napierville, Ill. A graduate of Western Reserve College (1869), he was ordained in 1871 and held several pastorates before writing the highly influential Our Country (1885), in which he proposed religious solutions for social and economic problems. He developed his Social Gospel themes in the New Era (1893). He founded the League for Social Service in 1902, under whose auspices he continued to lecture and write to promote Christian responsibility for curing social ills.