Student Volunteer Movement - Post World War II

Post World War II

As indicated by the foregoing, a considerable portion of the Student Volunteer Movement's energy in the post World War II era continued to be taken up in attempts to define its relationships to other student Christian movements and to general Protestant mission mechanics and theory. Despite the uncertainties involved in these evolving relationships, the Movement was able to bounce back from its 1940 nadir and to continue with a positive program for nearly two more decades.

Sydney Ahlstrom, among other historians of American religion, has described a post World War II revival in American Christianity which extended nearly to the end of the 1950s. Amidst social trends of urbanization and suburbanization, geographical mobility, and economic affluence, problems of adjustment and anxieties over status and 'acceptance' were ever-present. Churches were obviously the sort of family institution that the social situation required." . The Cold War atmosphere of the era was ripe for the resurgence of a religious faith which could promise peace of mind. Fundamentalist theology which had fallen into disrepute was revived in an intellectually updated form.

During the 1920s and 1930s Student Volunteer Movement leaders had frequently pointed out that the decline of the Movement was directly related to a decline in general interest in religion on American campuses. Students were not likely to commit themselves to missionary work when they were not wholly committed to the Christian faith. A resurgence of more evangelical religion during and after World War II allowed the SVM to find a broader base for its programs. The Board of Directors in 1944 concluded that "The Movement needs to make increasingly clear its commitment to a full evangelical missionary message and program . . . Not alone in emphasis on current social improvement, but also in and through such service to a message that is in the fullest sense redemptive and eternal, will be its strength."

In 1946, the Student Volunteer Movement's listing of missionary openings, Christian Horizons, included nearly one thousand overseas vacancies. A publicity release for the Movement claimed that "faced today with the need for hundreds of new workers, both large and small boards look to the Student Volunteer Movement for assistance, both in supplying candidates to meet immediate needs, and in conducting a program of education and recruitment which will guarantee a steady stream of volunteers from which the boards can select personnel."

At a meeting of the SVM Board of Directors in April 1948, it was reported that the Movement's finances were in good condition and there were many evidences of increased missionary interest on the campuses. The Movement budget for 1951/1952 was $60,400, more than $10,000 above the budget of the previous year and six times the budget of 1941/1942. During the academic year 1952/1953 a travel staff of twenty men and women from five denominations visited over three hundred colleges in forty-four states on behalf of the Movement.

The resurgence sparked by increased religious interest and the nation's improving economic condition appears to have peaked for the SVM towards the middle of the 1950s, or at least to have taken a different form as the Movement was drawn into ecumenical ventures and faced with theoretical questions about its recruiting program. Twenty-one members of the Movement travel staff visited three hundred and fifty campuses during the academic year 1955/1956. At the same time, however, there were only five hundred declared student volunteers on American undergraduate campuses. The SVM budget for 1956/1957 was reduced to $50,000.

Programs of missionary education and support of student volunteers were carried on after the formation of the National Student Christian Federation by the Commission on World Mission and its Committee for the Fellowship of Student Volunteers. In May 1962 it was reported that the Committee's newsletter was sent to over three thousand volunteers or prospective volunteers. The Commissions program included staff visits to campuses, local Fellowship gatherings of volunteers, Week-End Conversations on Mission, personal encouragement and counseling, Frontier Seminars, the Quadrennial Conference, ecumenical summer service projects, and so forth.