Following the Commune upsurge, a new theological movement appeared : social Christianity. The industrial revolution entailed such miserable living conditions in city working-class quarters that pastors were shocked and began a theological reflection on social matters.
From 1872 on, the evangelical popular Mission, led by the British pastor Robert Mac All, had drawn attention to the ignorance of the working-class in religious matters. From 1878 on, Pastor Tommy Fallot, born in a family of industrialists and pastor of a chapel in the North of Paris (formerly called Chapelle Taitbout) pleaded for Christian socialism. It was not only welfare, charity or morals that mattered for him : it was a matter of social justice.
At the same time, in Nîmes, the "Ecole de Nîmes" was created under the leadership the economist Charles Gide, an uncle of André Gide. He sought a third, middle way between capitalism and socialism. He founded producers' and consumers' cooperatives. He stressed the aspect of solidarity. In 1896 the "Revue du Christianisme social" was founded ; it still exists today under the name « Autre Temps ».
