The collection is open for research.
Onsite storage.
This collection contains typescript addresses presented to the Theological Discussion Group. It includes a small amount of administrative correspondence, including lists of members, which are included with the folders of addresses given at the retreats to which they refer. A number of undated or anonymous papers within this collection appear to originate from the group or to have circulated among members of the group.
Theological Discussion Group papers, 1934 -- 1961
This series contains typescript addresses presented to the Theological Discussion Group. It includes a small amount of administrative correspondence, including lists of members, which are included with the folders of addresses given at the retreats to which they refer. A number of undated or anonymous papers within this collection appear to originate from the group or to have circulated among members of the group.
General collections
The collection is arranged in one chronological series.
The collection is open for research.
Onsite storage.
Some material in this collection may be protected by copyright and other rights. Information concerning copyright, fair use, and reproduction requests can be consulted at Columbia's Copyright Advisory Office.
Item description, Theological Discussion Group papers, box #, folder #, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.
42 of the total of 55 meetings are covered here. For papers and meetings not covered in this collection, please see Yale Divinity School archives: Theological Discussion Group Papers (RG 43), Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library. https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/4/resources/252
This collection is a compilation from two sources in the Burke Library: initially papers from Union Seminary Administrative records Series 9F whose original source was President H. P Van Dusen's papers after 1963 and the contents of a formerly unprocessed restricted access box of papers (Cage RK55T391).
Columbia University Libraries, Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary
The collection has been retained in the original chronological order of the discussion group meetings. Administrative papers are retained with the meeting session to which they refer. Dated papers are followed by a sequence of undated papers and finally a small number of anonymous papers also undated. 42 of the total of 55 meetings are covered here. Materials were placed in new acid-free folders and boxes. In some cases, acidic items were separated from one another by interleaving with acid-free paper. The finding aid was created by R. Clifton Bailey in 2007 and revised with additions by Ruth Tonkiss Cameron in 2008, and edited by Leah Edelman in 2023.
2023-02-09 PDF converted to EAD and description updated by Leah Edelman.
The [East Coast] Theological Discussion Group was started in 1934 by Henry Pitney Van Dusen at the time when he was Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at UTS and continued until the early 1960s. The aim of this long lived discussion group, in the words of Van Dusen, was to "discover what is essential and distinctive in the Christian gospel for today" by a process of debate around chosen themes. The recurrently attending theologians of this group were Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Henry Van Dusen, James Luther Adams, Georgia Harkness, Wilhelm Pauck, John Knox, Edwin Aubrey, Douglas Steere and Cornelius Kruse among others. The group chose a topic for the year and would meet twice yearly to present papers concerning that topic at a weekend retreat. A critic was chosen for each presentation. Topics include: Church and Politics, Humanism, American Corruptions, Redemption, War, Eschatology, etc. While most of the meetings were held as weekend retreats at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT, some were held at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey and College of Preachers in Washington D.C.
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