Ralph Washington Sockman was the senior pastor of Christ Church (United Methodist) in New York City, United States. He gained considerable prominence in the U.S. as the featured speaker on the weekly NBC radio program, National Radio Pulpit, which aired from 1928 to 1962, and as a writer of several best-selling books on the Christian life. Time Magazine reported in 1946 that Sockman's National Radio Pulpit program received 4,000 letters weekly, making him "the number one Protestant radio pastor of the U.S. ...rated by volume of fan mail". Fifteen years later in 1961, Time said that Sockman was "generally acknowledged as the best Protestant preacher in the U.S."

In 1950, he was also appointed associate professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He toured extensively for speaking engagements nationwide and often preached at the 6,000-seat Ocean Grove Auditorium on New Jersey's seashore, which was packed to capacity on "Sockman Sundays," as those occasions were popularly called. Some of his sermons from those appearances were subsequently published in 1939 as Ways of the Christian Life: Sermons by the Sea.