It represents the culmination of his 15 years of identification with the «religious socialist» movement in Germany, dating back to the time just after World War I when he was called on the carpet by the synodical consistory in Berlin to account for
his appearance as a lecturer at a meeting of the Independent Social Democratic Party — a party which, from the synod's standpoint, had added to the injury of being socialist the insult of having been antiwar as well.