2010 Reprint of 1946 Edition. Charles Monroe Sheldon (1857-1946) was an American minister in the Congregational churches and leader of the Social Gospel movement. He became an advocate of the late nineteenth century school of thought known as Christian Socialism. His theological outlook focused on the practicalities of the moral life, with much less emphasis on the doctrinal traditions of personal redemption from sin in Christ. The unifying theme of his sermons was based on posing the question, what would Jesus do? when facing moral decisions. The theme of the sermons was later fictionalized into the novel In His Steps. The central ethos of the novel was not about personal redemption but about moral choices related to encountering circumstances of poverty and deprivation.