This November, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections commemorates the 50^th Anniversary of the Thanksgiving Workshop on Evangelicals and Social Concern and the resulting “Chicago Declaration.” At a time when many American evangelicals were increasingly grappling with the role of political action and social justice in American religious life, the 1973 Chicago Declaration emerged as a call for action – and a point of controversy – for a new vision of American evangelicalism grounded in social, economic, and racial justice.

Several collections in Archives & Special Collections document the development of this movement, including Collection 37: Records of Christians for Social Action and newly received papers from Ronald Sider (Accession 2022-053), which contain many folders of correspondence on the workshop planning, as well as the extensive discussions and disagreements surrounding the first drafts of the Chicago Declaration.