Changes

Fosdick in 1913 published the book ''The Assurance of Immortality'' and he would later state that his ideas provided a way for Christians to prevent themselves from commiting "intellectual suicide."   

Fosdick in 1913 published the book ''The Assurance of Immortality'' and he would later state that his ideas provided a way for Christians to prevent themselves from commiting "intellectual suicide."   

He became chief minister of the new Riverside Church, designing its architecture to resemble a thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral in Chartres, France, and filling it with busts of spiritual and secular heroes, from Aquinas to Einstein.  

He became chief minister of the new Riverside Church, designing its architecture to resemble a thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral in Chartres, France, and filling it with busts of spiritual and secular heroes, from Aquinas to Einstein.<ref> See [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,740482,00.html "Riverside Church" ''Time'' Oct. 06, 1930 online]</ref>

Fosdick originally supported [[eugenics]], but became increasingly critical of it.  For Fosdick, the idea that eugenicists were an enlightened cadre leading the dull masses revealed a dangerous hubris. He concluded, "The question is not whether changes will occur."  Fosdick and other liberal religious leaders already agreed that scientific advances made social changes inevitable. The question was "how they will occur, under whose aegis and superintendence, by whose guidance and direction, and how much better the world will be when they are here."<ref> Quoted in Christine Rosen, ''Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement'' (2004) p. 131.</ref>  He remained a strong advocate of birth control for married couples.  During the Great Depression Fosdick was highly critical of unfettered capitalism, but he believed the American people could achieve a more just economic order without embracing leftwing radicalism; he dreaded Communism as the very devil.   

Fosdick originally supported [[eugenics]], but became increasingly critical of it.  For Fosdick, the idea that eugenicists were an enlightened cadre leading the dull masses revealed a dangerous hubris. He concluded, "The question is not whether changes will occur."  Fosdick and other liberal religious leaders already agreed that scientific advances made social changes inevitable. The question was "how they will occur, under whose aegis and superintendence, by whose guidance and direction, and how much better the world will be when they are here."<ref> Quoted in Christine Rosen, ''Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement'' (2004) p. 131.</ref>  He remained a strong advocate of birth control for married couples.  During the Great Depression Fosdick was highly critical of unfettered capitalism, but he believed the American people could achieve a more just economic order without embracing leftwing radicalism; he dreaded Communism as the very devil.