J. H. Oldham
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/JH_Oldham_at_WCC_Assembly%2C_Amsterdam_1948.jpg/220px-JH_Oldham_at_WCC_Assembly%2C_Amsterdam_1948.jpg)
Joseph Houldsworth Oldham
Life
J.H. Oldham was the son of George Wingate Oldham (1807-1859) and Eliza 'Lillah' née Houldsworth (1845-?). He was born in India and brought up in
He became editor of the International Review of Missions in 1912, and travelled widely.[2] At the end of World War I he was a secretary of the Emergency Committee of Cooperating Missions, chaired by John Mott.[3] Article 438 of the Treaty of Versailles dealt with the property of German missions in territories ceded to the Allies by a mechanism of putting them in trust, and its inclusion is attributed to lobbying by Oldham.[4]
He was secretary of the
From 1938 to 1947 he convened ‘
Works
His book Christianity and the Race Problem (1924), against scientific racism, has been called "a sophisticated attempt to develop an alternative Christian analysis of racial relations by attacking the determinism of Stoddard and Grant, both of whom are cited, on scientific, economic, and ethical grounds".[13] His proposed solutions, however, have been criticised as vague.[14] At the time of publication it was reviewed positively by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje.[15]
Oldham was a principal leader in organizing and writing and editing material for the "Conference on Church, Community, and State", known as the Oxford Conference of 1937.[16]
At the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948 Oldham contributed the important paper "A Responsible Society".[17]
In later work he was influenced by Ludwig Feuerbach, Eberhard Grisebach and Martin Buber.[18]
His book Life is Commitment (1959) is based upon a course of lectures given to the London School of Religion.
References
- Biography
- Keith Clements (1999), Faith on the Frontier: A life of J. H. Oldham
- Marjorie Reeves (editor) (1999), Christian Thinking and Social Order
Notes
- ^ NSM KnowledgeBase - #8213 - Bio
- ^ John Houldsworth Oldham
- ^ Foreign Missions Year Book of North America, 1919 (1919), pp. 11-2.
- ^ Clements, p. 165.
- ^ School of Oriental and African Studies Library: International Missionary Council
- ^ Guide to the International Missionary Council Archives, 1910-1961 World Council of Churches, Geneva
- ^ Introduction | Catalogues and Resources | Information Services
- ^ People: St Andrew's and St George's West Church Edinburgh
- ^ Table of attendance, 1938 to 1944, in Roger Kojecky, T. S. Eliot's Social Criticism (1971), pp. 238-9.
- ^ Stefan Collini, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006), p. 319.
- ^ AIM25 text-only browsing: Institute of Education: The Moot
- ^ Untitled Document Archived August 12, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Christianity and the race problem
- ^ William Minter. King Solomon's Mines Revisited (1988), p. 64.
- ^ W. Otterspeer, Leiden Oriental connections, 1850-1940 (1989), p. 215.
- ^ see W. A. Visser 't Hooft and J. H. Oldham, The Church and Its Function in Society (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1937) and J. H. Oldham The Oxford Conference (Official Report) (New York: Willett, Clark & Co., 1937).
- ^ The Church and the Disorder of Society, vol. 3, Man's Disorder and God's Design (New York: Harper & Bros., 1948), 120-54.
- ^ Reeves, p. 9.
Further reading
- George Bennett, Paramountcy to Partnership: J. H. Oldham and Africa, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1960), pp. 356–361.
- Dennis Bates, Ecumenism and Religious Education between the Wars: The Work of J. H. Oldham, British Journal of Religious Education, Volume 8, Issue 3 Summer 1986, pp. 130–139.
- Tom Steele and Richard Kenneth Taylor, Oldham's Moot (1938-1947), the universities and the adult citizen, History of Education, 4 August 2009
External links
- "J. H. Oldham". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German).