The Ecumenical Impulse in Twentieth Century American Protestantism: a study of Douglas Horton's Illustrative Career (circa 1912-1968)

Team Members/Contributors

Theodore L. Trost Harvard University Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

This dissertation focuses on the theme of ecumenism as it is embodied in the career of the American Protestant church leader Douglas Horton. The chapters delineate five stages in the development of Horton’s ecumenical commitment. First as a student at Hartford Theological Seminary, Horton partakes of the ecumenical ethos that permeates the seminary community in the aftermath of the 1910 Edinburgh Conference. Second, Horton brings contemporary German theology to the awareness of a wide American audience through his translation of Karl Barth’s Word of God and Word of Man. Then he is the leader of the Congregational Christian Churches as they negotiate union with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Next as dean of Harvard Divinity School, he presides over the inclusion of the first Roman Catholic onto the faculty and advocates the development of a center for the study of world religions. Finally, he is an active interlocutor in wide-ranging theological conversations with the Roman Catholic hierarchy as a Protestant observers at the Second Vatican Council. This dissertation combines biography and institutional history. It both explores the ecumenical impulse as refracted through Douglas Horton’s career and examines the effects of Horton’s ecumenical commitments on the various institutions he helped to shape.

Image Title Year Type Contributor(s) Other Info
  The Ecumenical Impulse in Twentieth Century American Protestantism: A Study of Douglas Horton's Illustrative Career circa 1912-1968 1998 Dissertation Theodore L. Trost
Douglas Horton and the Ecumenical Impulse in American Religion 2002 Dissertation Book Theodore L. Trost