ROUGH DRAFT—NOT FOR CITATION

Originally Published in The Encyclopedia of Protestantism

 

 WWJD

 

            WWJD, the acronym for “What Would Jesus Do?” gained prominence after an Evangelical youth group adopted it as a slogan in the 1990s.  However, the acronym’s underlying question predates the acronym’s creation by nearly 100 years, having been popularized in the late nineteenth century by the pastor and novelist, Charles M. Sheldon.

            Sheldon (1857-1946) was born in Wellsville, New York into the family of a respected Congregationalist minister.  After completing his education at Boston University and Andover Newton Seminary, he became a Congregationalist minister in Topeka, Kansas.  Sheldon’s brief novel, In His Steps, was written in 1896 and is most remembered for its provocative ethical question: “What would Jesus do?”  In Sheldon’s novel, as in his activist life, Jesus was assumed to promote the social causes of late nineteenth and early twentieth century progressive Christianity.  Sheldon was active in the temperance movement, anti-war campaigns, child labor issues and struggles against racism and poverty.  In spite of the novel’s tremendous sales, Sheldon retained no legal rights to royalties from the book’s sale due to a copyright error.  (When a few publishers voluntarily paid Sheldon royalties, he donated the money to charity.)  Ironically, publishers’ wide scale pirating of the book promoted both the book’s sales and Sheldon’s literary reputation. 

Sheldon published over 20 books and edited a periodical, The Christian Herald, but only In His Steps (which sold 23 million copies in his lifetime) enjoined soaring popularity during his lifetime and in subsequent generations.  After his death, Sheldon’s novel was “rediscovered” in 1950 when Glenn Clark published a volume on a new generation’s discovery of In His Steps.  Such rediscoveries occurred regularly throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.  The most important rediscovery of Sheldon’s novel occurred in the early 1990s and coincided with other two events in popular culture: the emergence of the World Wide Web and the popular advertising slogan “Just do it.” 

A youth group at Calvary Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan read Sheldon’s novel and created the acronym WWJD as a counter-cultural Christian alternative to the secular advertising slogan “Just do it.”  The youth group began producing and distributing cloth bracelets emboldened with the WWJD acronym.  The bracelets were popularized through several web sites (by 1999, other 50,000 web sites were offering WWJD merchandise and promoting related discussions).  Zondervan Publishing, an Evangelical publisher in central Michigan, began promoting and extending the WWJD phenomenon with a full line of complementary products, including a study bible, devotional and inspirational books, T-shirts, board games, Sunday school curriculum, calendars and jewelry.  By 1999, over 14 million WWJD bracelets had sold.

            The Evangelical WWJD movement has deemphasized the socially progressive Christian agenda promoted by Sheldon and thus incurred criticism from some non-Evangelicals for usurping Sheldon’s theological agenda.

           

References and Further Reading

Clark, Glenn. What Would Jesus Do? Wherein a New Generation Undertakes to Walk in His Steps. St. Paul: Macalester Park Publishing, 1950.       

Sheldon, Charles M. In His Steps New York: Hurst, 1896.

www.wwjd.com (17 March 2003)

            www.whatwouldjesusdo.com (17 March 2003)

 

Thomas E. Phillips, Colorado Christian University, USA

 

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