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Harry
Emerson Fosdick (1879-1969) American clergyman, b. Buffalo, N.Y.,
graduated from Colgate University, 1900, and Union Theological
Seminary, 1904. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1903.
Fosdick was the most prominent liberal baptist minister of the
early 20th Century. He was Pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church on West Twelfth Street and then at historic Riverside
Church (formerly Park Avenue Baptist Church) in New York City.
Fosdick became a central figure in the conflict between
fundamentalist
and liberal forces within American Protestantism in the 1920s and
1930s.
While at First Presbyterian Church, on May 12, 1922, he delivered
his
famous sermon "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" in which
he defended
the modernist position. In that sermon he presented the
Bible as a
record of the unfolding of God's will, not as the literal Word of
God.
He saw the history of Christianity as one of development,
progress, and
gradual change. To the fundamentalists, this was rank apostasy,
and the battle lines were drawn.
Dr. Fosdick was an outspoken opponent of racism and injustice.
Fosdick
also supported appeasement of Hitler and argued "moral
equivalence",
i.e. that the democracies were largely to blame for the rise of
fascism: "the all but unanimous judgment seems to be
that we, the democracies,
are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the
dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so."
Fosdick's sermons won him wide recognition, as did his radio
addresses
which were nationally broadcast. He authored numerous books, and
many of his sermon collections are still in print. He is also the
author of the hymn, "God of Grace and God of Glory".
Fosdick had a daughter Dorothy Fosdick who was foreign policy
adviser
to Henry M. Jackson. |
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Those
who know no hardships will know no hardihood.
Those who face no
calamity will need no courage.
Mysterious though it is, the
characteristics in human nature
which we love best grow in a soil with
a strong mixture of troubles.
Harry
Emerson Fosdick
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