Christian Advocate

The Christian Advocate was a weekly newspaper published in New York City by the Methodist Episcopal Church. It began publication in 1826 and by the mid-1830s had become the largest circulating weekly in the United States, with more than 30,000 subscribers and an estimated 150,000 readers. After changes of name and a split into two publications, publication ceased in 1975.

Overview
The Methodist Book concern was authorized by the General Conference to publish The Christian Advocate for 147 years. Its publishing location would change as the Methodist Church expanded westward and the slavery issue divided the church in 1844. After the church united again, what had become a monthly magazine was finally edited in Chicago and printed in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1939. It was first a weekly broadsheet, and later a monthly magazine for Methodist families. In the intervening years, The Advocate name was part of the name of numerous Methodist journals published by local conferences and jurisdictions of the church.

The last chapter of the Christian Advocate magazine was reported in Time magazine's Religion section (October 11, 1956):

"The 1826 prospectus described the Christian Advocate as "an entertaining, instructive and profitable family visitor." This week, in one of the most ambitious ventures in the history of church publishing, the U.S. Methodist Church split the 130-year-old Christian Advocate into two visitors—one entertaining (Together) and one instructive.

The instructive visitor is for ministers: a trim, digest-sized monthly called The New Christian Advocate, packed with 22 pithy articles under such headings as Church Administration, Architecture & Building, Pastor & Parsonage. Illustrations and features enliven the pages between pastoral shoptalk ranging from "Preaching on Controversial Issues" to "Psychiatry Needs Religion.""

In 1959 editors of The New Christian Advocate changed the name back to The Christian Advocate and its format from pocket size to full size, with circulation bi-monthly. In 1973, due to declining circulation, the United Methodist Board of Publishing authorized the replacement of both magazines with a pocket-sized magazine entitled United Methodists Today. A supplement for pastors was published, Today's Ministry. Both magazines ended in 1975.

In popular culture
The Christian Advocate featured in the third episode of the 2022 HBO series The Gilded Age, as an example of the prejudice black writers faced in the 1880s.

Notable editors and writers

 * Nathan Bangs
 * James Monroe Buckley
 * William Curnow
 * John Price Durbin
 * Charles Henry Fowler
 * George Peck