The Theological Discussion Group and Its Impact on American and Ecumenical Theology, 1920–1945

Abstract

Discussion about theological developments in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s has focused on the influence of European “crisis theology” and Reinhold Niebuhr. This approach, however, has overlooked the cooperative work carried out by the theologians and churchmen who pushed American Protestant thought towards neo-orthodoxy. At the core of this movement stood a group of young theologians who shared a generational identity, having known each other as student leaders in the YMCA, Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM), and the World's Student Christian Federation (WSCF). Among them were men and women who later held academic positions at America's most prestigious Protestant seminaries: Henry P. Van Dusen, John C. Bennett, the Niebuhr brothers, Walter M. Horton, Edwin E. Aubrey, Georgia Harkness, Robert L. Calhoun, John Mackay, Samuel McCrea Cavert, and the layman Francis P. Miller.