Papers of George Arthur Buttrick

George Arthur Buttrick was Preacher to the University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University from 1954 to 1960. Buttrick was born in Seaham Harbour, England, on March 23, 1892 and died in Louisville, Kentucky on January 23, 1980. After graduating from Victoria University and the Lancashire Independent Seminary in Manchester, he immigrated to the United States, where he was ordained as a minister of the Congregational Church, U.S.A. (1915). From 1915 to 1918 he was minister of the First Union Congregational Church in Quincy, Illinois; from 1918 to 1921 of the First Congregational Church in Rutland, Vermont; and from 1921 to 1927 of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, New York. Between 1927 and 1954, he was minister of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, in which position he became known as one of the most effective and eloquent Protestant preachers in the country. In 1954, he came to Harvard as Preacher to the University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals; he held both positions until retiring in 1960. At Harvard Buttrick taught New Testament, Pastoral Theology, and Homiletics. He subsequently taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and Presbyterian Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In his career Buttrick acquired twenty-nine honorary degrees from colleges and universities. He wrote a number of books on religious topics, including The Parables of Jesus (1929), Faith and Education (1952), Sermons Preached in a University Church (1959), and Biblical Thought and the Secular University (1960). He also was general editor of the twelve-volume Interpreter's Bible (1953) and the four-volume Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (1962), the first such major work of its kind in half a century. Throughout his career Buttrick traveled widely to deliver sermons and addresses at churches and colleges. In 1951-1952 as Joseph Cook Traveling Lecturer under the auspices of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, he and his wife, Agnes Gardner Buttrick, undertook a speaking tour of Asia. A committed Christian pacifist, Buttrick was active in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other anti-war organizations. Buttrick was also involved in the conflicts between liberal and moderate Protestants (whose positions he espoused) and fundamentalists, especially within the Presbyterian Church.