Shailer Mathews (1863–1941) was an American liberal Christian theologian, involved with the Social Gospel movement.
Career
Born on May 26, 1863, in Portland, Maine, and graduated from Colby College. Mathews was a progressive, advocating social concerns as part of the Social Gospel message, and subjecting biblical texts to scientific study, in opposition to contemporary conservative Christians. He incorporated evolutionary theory into his religious views, noting that the two were not mutually exclusive. He remained a devout Baptist for his entire life, and helped establish the Northern Baptist Convention, serving as its president in 1915. Mathews was a prolific author, served as president of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research twice (in 1898–1899 and 1928–1929), and also served as dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago (from 1908 to 1933). An endowed chair in his honor, the Shailer Mathews Professorship at the University of Chicago Divinity School, has recently been held by Franklin I. Gamwell and Hans Dieter Betz, and is currently held by Margaret M. Mitchell. He died on October 23, 1941. His ashes are interred in the crypt of First Unitarian Church of Chicago.
Select publications
The Social Teachings of Jesus, 1897
A History of New Testament Times in Palestine, 1899
The French Revolution, 1900
The Messianic Hope in the New Testament, 1905
The Church and the Changing Order, 1907
The Social Gospel, 1909
The Gospel and the modern Man, 1910
The Social Teaching of Jesus, 1910
Scientific Management in Churches, 1911
The Individual and the Social Gospel, 1914
The Spiritual Interpretation of History, 1916
Patriotism and Religion, 1918
The Validity of American Ideals, 1922
The Faith of Modernism, 1924
Jesus on Social Institutions, 1928
The Atonement and the Social Process, 1930
The Growth of the Idea of God, 1931
Immortality and the Cosmic Process, 1933
Christianity and Social Process, 1934
Creative Christianity, 1935
New Faith for Old: An Autobiography, 1936
The Church and the Christian, 1938
Is God Emeritus? 1940
See also
Ernest DeWitt Burton
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
Photograph of Shailer Mathews
Mathews House
History of New Testament Times in Palestine Macmillan Company, 1899
Guide to the Shailer Mathews Papers 1892-1942 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center