Christianity and Eugenics: The Place of Religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, c.1907-1940

G J Baker

doi:10.1093/shm/hku008

Abstract

Historians have regularly acknowledged the significance of religious faith to the eugenics movement in Britain and the USA. However, much of this scholarship suggests a polarised relationship of either conflict or consensus. Where Christian believers participated in the eugenics movement this has been represented as an abandonment of ‘orthodox’ theology, and the impression has been created that eugenics was a secularising force. In contrast, this article explores the impact of religious values on two eugenics organisations: the British Eugenics Education Society, and the American Eugenics Society. It is demonstrated that concerns over religion resulted in both these organisations modifying and tempering the public work that they undertook. This act of concealing and minimising the visibly controversial aspects of eugenics is offered as an addition to the debate over ‘mainline’ versus ‘reform’ eugenics.

Highlights

James Moore has argued that Fisher viewed eugenics as a form of salvation, part of his Christian faith that required expression in works.45. Moore has described this belief as Fisher’s ‘passionate credo’, a statement of faith that was voiced in 1912 at the Cambridge Branch of the Eugenics Education Society (EES): We require a new pride of birth, in that whatever valuable quality we show really goes to establish the quality of the family; and a new confidence in our instinctive judgments of human worth
It is clear that both the EES and the American Eugenics Society (AES) saw the issue of religion as a source of considerable concern
Each society made repeated attempts to appeal to religious communities for support, and great efforts were made in an attempt to ensure their work was not publicly offensive. The success of this public image management is highly questionable; the societies themselves frequently blamed external groups for tainting the name of their cause. This appears to have been the case even where they privately agreed with the controversial ideas that triggered this opposition

Summary

Introduction

Turda has noted that secular theories of human improvement came into most conflict with religious groups as they pressed for legislative changes in areas such as marriage, which were traditionally governed by the Church.37 In many cases, this was described as a new ‘eugenic religion’, this was often done in a vague rhetorical manner.38 Galton suggested that the term ‘religion’ could be applied ‘to any group of sentiments or persuasions that are strong enough to bind us to do that which we intellectually may acknowledge to be our duty, and the possession of some form of religion in this larger sense of the word is of the utmost importance to moral stability.’39 For Galton, eugenics needed to promote ‘the religious significance of the doctrine of evolution’.40 John Waller has linked this theme to the desire of Galton to create a ‘scientific clerisy’, or a professionalised group with social prestige to rival that of the church.41 Waller states that this ambition was directly related to Galton’s involvement in the prayer-gauge debate; Galton promoted a naturalistic view of the world and resented the monopoly which the church had enjoyed in the field of education.42

Results

Conclusion