Luther Allan Weigle

As President of the Federal Council of Churches and in other capacities he spoke out and wrote about the choices and challenges in American church life and public education. As a leader of the International Council of Religious Education and chairman of the World Sunday School Association he traveled widely and gave major addresses in Glasgow, Rio de Janeiro, Oslo, Mexico City, Toronto and elsewhere. In addition, he was a delegate and speaker at the International Missionary Council in Jerusalem in 1928, and he spent six months in China in 1935 visiting and consulting with the Christian colleges and seminaries. Weigle moved through much of the 20th century like a colossus, a giant among men and women. Weigle described himself as a "Republican in politics, a Lutheran in theology and a Congregationalist in affiliation." Robert Wood Lynn described his theological stance as "evangelical liberalism;" Weigle occupied a centrist position between modernity and biblical literalism.

As a professor, he broke new ground with courses on the psychology of religion, American church history and the principles of religious education. The list of his students reads like a Who's Who in the field of teaching and administration in religious education and higher education. He was the architect of one of the most important series in the field, the Yale Studies in the History and Theory of Religious Education, twenty-one volumes in all. He was the recipient of many honorary degrees and held many endowed lectureships. At his retirement as dean he was honored as a great teacher, mentor, friend and confidant. In his later years he saw the Revised Standard Version accepted as the "Common Bible" by all branches of Christianity, and he was made a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Paul VI.

Luther Weigle was born on September 11, 1880, at Littlestown, Pennsylvania, one of three children born to the Rev. Elias Daniel Weigle, D.D., and Hannah Bream Weigle. In an autobiographical essay, "The Religious Education of a Protestant," he described what it was like growing up in the home of a Lutheran minister and said that his family life was one of Christian nurture. His father was described as an "effective teacher," from whom more was learned than from years of Sunday school. Church life was filled with bible study, prayer meetings and revival services, and in later years he recalled that he had an experience of conversion at a young age. His father bought a typewriter and young Weigle would help in the typing of the sermons. At the age of 11 he reported in the local newspaper on a number of sermons preached by his father. He attended the public schools of Altoona, where the family moved when he was six years old, and he prepared for college at the preparatory school of Dickinson College.

Weigle enrolled in Gettysburg College and was most stimulated by a course in logic, four years of Greek, and an introduction to philosophy. He did extensive reading in biology and geology and "was convinced that one could accept the scientific principle of evolution and yet hold to the Christian conception of God and the Christian view of human life." Graduating from college in 1900, he gave the valedictory address. Study for the ministry followed at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. So proficient was he in Greek that he was asked to teach some of the classes in the subject at Gettysburg College when the professor was ill. He also taught at the academy associated with the college and, despite his father's hope that he would become a parish minister, he resolved to go on for graduate study and become a college teacher. Also, while at seminary, he preached one summer at a Lutheran church in Harrisburg and later at Mount Union. After two years at seminary he enrolled in the graduate school at Yale University. During his second year at Yale he was called to serve the First Lutheran Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This led to his ordination in 1903 by the Allegheny Synod, with his father taking part in the ceremony of "laying on of hands." This pastorate lasted one year, 1903-1904, and was followed by an assistantship in psychology at Yale.

Of great influence were several courses at Yale taught by George Ladd. Weigle received the PhD degree in 1905, and his dissertation was entitled "An Historical and Critical Study of Kant's Antinomy of Pure Reason." There was a subsidy available at Yale to help pay for the printing of dissertations, but revision was necessary and there was little time in his busy years of teaching at Carleton College. In the archives of Weigle at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library is a hand-written list that he prepared, "Great Teachers I Have Had," as follows: "Besides my father and Jesus; George T. Ladd, theism; James Mortison, study of religion; Borden P. Bowne, personalism; Imanuel Kant, moral obligation; William James, dilemma of determinism, will to believe; William DeWitt Hyde, God's Education of Man; Josiah Royce, religious aspect of philosophy; Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture; John Dewey, social idealism, but 'Short-sighted pragmatism'."

Weigle married a former student of his, Clara Boxrud of Red Wing, Minnesota, and they had four children: Richard, Luther, Jr., Margaret and Ruth. Years later, when living in New Haven, Weigle was interviewed several times by a local reporter, John Knoble, and the resulting article in the New Haven Register began with this anecdote:

"This is Mr. Weigle speaking…" This has been the way Yale Divinity School Dean Emeritus Luther A. Weigle has been answering his telephone over the years, and his manner, as much as the man, has since become legend. Dean Weigle has verified an anecdote related to his phone answering habit. One day, the Weigle family sat down for dinner and the dean was summoned to the telephone. After a short conversation, he returned to the table and found his family waiting for him to say a prayer before the meal. He folded his hands, bowed his head and reverently said: "This is Mr. Weigle speaking…"

Weigle's career covered 66 years, fully two-thirds of the 20th century, from the time of his first teaching assignment in 1905 to his retirement as chairman, then as vice-chairman, of the Standard Bible Committee in 1970. His career can be divided into three stages, each 21-23 years in length. The first stage began with his appointment as a professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, followed by his move in 1916 to Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. The second stage was his long tenure as dean of Yale Divinity School, from 1928 to 1949. The final stage, when most people would be enjoying retirement, saw the completion of the entire Revised Standard Version of the Bible in 1952, the Apocrypha in 1957, and the translation being accepted as the "Common Bible" by Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Churches.

From 1905 to 1916 Weigle was professor of philosophy at Carleton, a Congregational Church-related college, with the exception of one year, 1914-1915, when he was a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. For five years, 1909-1914, he also served as dean of the college and worked closely with the new president, Donald Cowling, who had been a friend and fellow graduate student at Yale. While at Carleton he also taught a course in psychology and established a school of education which trained and placed about 400 students as teachers in elementary and secondary schools. In recognition of his work, he was elected president of the Minnesota Educational Association in 1913. These years also saw the beginning of a life-long interest in the relationship between religion and public education. He was also the coach of a winning tennis team!

It was at Carleton that Weigle wrote his first book, The Pupil and the Teacher , which was commissioned and originally published by the Lutheran Publication Society in 1911, and later reprinted by other denominations and translated into other languages. Its purpose was to apply the new psychological insights regarding the development of children and adolescents to the teaching of the Bible and religion in Church Schools, commonly called Sunday schools. As such, it became a curriculum for the training of teachers by the cooperative Protestant organizations. The book was completely revised and re-published in 1929. The volume sold at least a million copies, and in later years Weigle was pleased that he had become a member of the "Yale book millionaire's club," joining colleagues such as Thornton Wilder, Robert Penn Warren, Roland Bainton and Kenneth Scott Latourette. It was this book which led to his appointment as a professor at Yale Divinity School.

Weigle became the first Horace Bushnell Professor of Christian Nurture at YDS in 1916. This chair had been endowed by Dotha Bushnell Hillyer, a daughter of Horace Bushnell, who had written the first part of his classic book, Christian Nurture , in 1847. Upon his appointment, Weigle prepared Bushnell's book for publication with a biographical essay by the YDS professor of church history, Williston Walker. Weigle also spoke at the laying of the cornerstone of Bushnell Hall in Hartford in 1928. He transferred his ministerial standing from the Lutheran Church to the Congregational Churches, indicating in his autobiographical essay: "I am glad that the freedom of the Congregational fellowship can embrace a Lutheran in theology." In 1924 he was appointed to the prestigious Sterling chair in religious education, the first one at YDS, a position he occupied until his retirement from Yale in 1949.

In addition to courses on the theory and practice of religious education, Weigle also taught classes in the psychology of religion, educational aspects of worship, and American church history. One of his responsibilities was to work with the Graduate School and the new School of Education, which flourished until the 1950s. In this capacity he helped a large number of graduate students who sought to earn the PhD, as well as the hundreds of seminarians going into various kinds of ministry. The department of religious education at YDS and the Graduate School launched an ambitious program to publish the very best of the doctoral dissertations as well as other research in the field under the name, the Yale Studies in the History and Theory of Religious Education. The first volume was published in 1924 by the Yale University Press: The History of Religious Education in Connecticut to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century by George Stewart, Jr. Weigle served as executive editor of the series.

Weigle followed up his best-selling book, The Pupil and the Teacher , with others: Training the Devotional Life in 1919 with Henry Hallam Tweedy, Talks to Sunday School Teachers in 1920, and Training Children in the Christian Family in 1921. Because of his teaching in the field of American church history, he was asked to prepare a volume in the series, "The Pageant of America: A Pictorial History of the United States," edited by Ralph H. Gabriel of the Yale faculty. This resulted in Volume X, American Idealism in 1928, the history of American religion and education replete with many illustrations. Other writings grew out of his participation in conventions of the World Sunday School Association, the International Missionary Council and the International Council of Religious Education.The second stage of his remarkable career began in 1928 when he was appointed dean of Yale Divinity School, succeeding Charles R. Brown. It was a critical time in theological education, both at Yale and throughout North America. Theological seminaries were, with a few exceptions, primarily denominational in nature, standards were low, and most applicants were accepted. Coinciding with Weigle's career at Yale was a cooperative movement that brought seminaries together, first in a regular biennial Conference and then in the formation of the American Association of Theological Schools in 1936. Weigle became chairman of the executive committee. Also, through his involvement in Yale-in-China, he was invited to spend six months in China in 1935, attending meetings of the Christian council, visiting schools and seminaries and writing a full report with recommendations for improving Chinese theological education.

There were many accomplishments and improvements in his own seminary. The schedule and curriculum were revised; enrollment was limited and standards for both admission and graduation were increased; women were admitted for the first time in 1932; new faculty members were recruited, such as H. Richard Niebuhr in Christian ethics, Liston Pope in social ethics, Millar Burrows in Bible, Hugh Hartshorne in psychology of religion, and Paul Vieth in religious education. Endowed funds from the university were extended to the divinity school; formerly, the school was limited to its own separate endowment. Funds from the Sterling trust and the Rockefellers were obtained to build a beautiful new campus called the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle upon the hill on Prospect Street, north of downtown New Haven. In Georgian style, this quadrangle provided eight dormitories, classrooms, offices, a chapel, a common room, refectory, gymnasium and a library. The result was that the maximum enrollment increased from 300 to 400, and the student body represented many more colleges, denominations and foreign countries. Yale Divinity School rose to the top echelon of theological seminaries in North America. Roland Bainton, eminent church historian and a YDS professor wrote in his book, Yale and the Ministry , published in 1957: "The last quarter of a century has been the greatest in the history of the Yale Divinity School." These were the "golden years" under the leadership of Dean Weigle and his successor, Liston Pope.

Because the case of Jerome Davis occupies almost two large boxes in Weigle's archives, brief mention should be made of it. Davis had joined the YDS faculty in 1924 in the Gilbert Stark chair of social philanthropy, later social ethics. He became well known in the country for his advocacy of labor organizing and other progressive issues. In the mid-1930s he sought promotion to a full professorship and the rank of a "permanent officer," but it was denied and Yale dismissed him. A complaint was filed with the American Association of University Professors, but their investigating committee found that Yale did not violate the principles of academic freedom or civil liberties. Dean Weigle wanted a different kind of teacher in the Stark chair and he wanted a professor who could work with the sociology department downtown. His views on the matter prevailed, but there was some feeling that too many years had gone by without resolving the issue.

Even during his tenure as Dean, Weigle continued to teach courses in religious education and a class on American church history, but he became more and more preoccupied with the many committees and organizations which required his attention. He was in great demand as a speaker at conventions, conferences, anniversaries, commencements, and at colleges and universities, seminaries and churches. His James Sprunt lectures at the Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. were published in 1938 under the title, Jesus and the Educational Method . A collection of his sermons appeared in 1937 with the title, We are Able . He also edited the centenary edition of Bushnell's Christian Nurture in 1947.

On April 28, 1949, there was a testimonial dinner for Weigle on the occasion of his retirement. Mary Alice Jones, one of his doctoral students, referred to him as "the man who turned Sunday School teaching into a science." Samuel McCrea Cavert of the Federal Council of Churches talked about his "rare combination of outstanding scholarship with unique administrative and organizational ability." YDS colleague Robert L. Calhoun recounted his days as a student at Carleton when Weigle was a professor and dean and listed his qualities then and at Yale: "the same amazing capacity for work, the same inclusive friendliness and good humor, the same easy competence in administration and in all sorts of human relations, and the same zeal for the whole diverse enterprise of education." A large album of letters from former students, colleagues and friends was presented, referring to him as a "great teacher," "wise counselor," and "friend." A Luther Weigle fund was set up at YDS, and Randolph Crump Miller was the first professor to teach under this new endowment.

The third stage in his long career began with his retirement from Yale in 1949 and ended when he relinquished chairmanship of the Standard Bible Committee in 1966 and the vice-chairmanship in 1970. His 1948 Cole lectures at Vanderbilt University were published as The English New Testament from Tyndale to the Revised Standard Version . In addition, his The Living Word: Some Bible Words Explained was published in 1956 and Bible Words in Living Language in 1960, the latter with Ronald Bridges. Also, he edited two large volumes called "Octapla," one on the entire New Testament and the other on the book of Genesis. Each volume presented eight English translations on facing pages. In the last years of his life Weigle was working on a book on the history of the English Bible.

The completion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible in 1952 was the crowning achievement of Weigle's career. It became an instant best-seller with sales of two and a half million copies in the first year. But there was also much opposition and controversy. Some people inquired as to how the Bible could be "changed," and Weigle pointed out that it was only the English translation that was changed. Organized opposition was led by Carl McIntyre and others on the grounds that the new version was "modernist," even "communist." There were even two examples of Bible-burning, in North Carolina and Ohio. A frontal attack was made on the RSV translation of Isaiah 7:14: "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." There were those who claimed that this undermined the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus, but Weigle explained that "young woman" was the correct translation of the Hebrew word and that this did not effect the translation of the Greek in the New Testament. In effect, the RSV ended the stranglehold of the King James Version in Protestant churches and opened the door for other translations, such as the New International Version or NIV.

Weigle devoted much time to addresses, articles and interviews about the new translation and used the media of radio and television to convey his message. In 1953 he wrote an "Open Letter" to the churches, setting forth his convictions about the Revised Standard Version and its use. After the Apocrypha was added to the RSV Bible in 1957, Roman Catholic scholars worked on their own RSV edition. When Weigle spoke at the dedication of the RSV memorial room at the Interchurch Center in New York City in 1964, he proudly pointed out the authorized Catholic publication, with the imprimatur of Cardinal Cushing of the Boston Archdiocese. Conversations with representatives of the Greek Orthodox Churches led to the acceptance of the RSV as the "Common Bible" of all three branches of Christianity: Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.

In recognition of his achievements in Bible translation and interpretation Weigle was made a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Paul VI in 1966, and the award was presented by Archbishop Henry O'Brien of Hartford at a ceremony in St. Thomas More Chapel in New Haven. The citation read in part: "Surely it is no mere conventional compliment to say that Dean Weigle has been a chosen instrument of the Lord for the historic task of bringing separated brothers together in the reading of God's Word. God's grace in Dean Weigle has not been without fruit, of which all of us, and generations to come, are the beneficiaries."

Weigle has been the recipient of many other awards, including citations for distinguished service by the Congregational Christian Churches, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Boy Scouts of America, the Chicago Bible Society (Gutenberg Award), and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. He has held named professorial lectureships at fourteen universities and seminaries and has received fourteen honorary degrees. Weigle was one of the first recipients of the Wilbur Lucius Cross medal, established by the Yale Graduate School Association in memory of a Yale professor and dean who had become Governor of the state of Connecticut. The New Haven Register presented its 1973 Connecticut Citizen of the Year award to him, saying: "The work of achieving (for the three branches of Christianity) of a common reading for the words of the prophets and of their God is in some ways the highest ecumenical statement of the current age of ecumenism."

Luther Allan Weigle died on September 2, 1976, in New Haven at the age of 95. The memorial service was held on September 7 in the Church of the Redeemer on Whitney Avenue in New Haven with Gerald Knoff delivering the message. Knoff, who was another doctoral student of Weigle's and a former executive of the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches, gave thanks to God for Weigle's teaching ministry, ecumenical and interchurch leadership, leadership in Bible translation, and as a Christian son, husband and father. He was buried next to his wife in a hilltop cemetery in New Hampshire, not far from their beloved summer home at Lake Sunapee, which the family had enjoyed for forty-five years.

Shortly after his death, a book of memoirs and memorabilia appeared with the title, The Glory Days: From the Life of Luther Allan Weigle , edited by his son, Richard D. Weigle, and published by Friendship Press in New York City. Besides a selection of essays, articles and sermons by Weigle, augmented by other associates, there is a complete bibliography, an expanded section about his long-term chairmanships and a "love letter" tribute from his daughter, Ruth Weigle Guyton, which was written for Valentine's Day in 1975. After describing his career as a public figure and as a loving father, she concluded with these words recognizing that her father was no longer traveling throughout the world: "Those were the glory days. Now life has narrowed to the limits of an upstairs room, but thousands the world over hold you in their hearts and lift you in their prayers."

On a personal note, Weigle had been retired for two years as dean when I entered Yale Divinity School in1951, but his presence was still felt. He came to the campus for meetings of the Standard Bible Committee in what was called the "RSV Room," and his course on American church history was remembered fondly. As a young pastor in Illinois, I went to the annual February meetings of the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches, when he would meet with YDS alumni and report on further progress with the RSV Bible, and I was present when he was honored in Omaha at the 1959 banquet. As the general secretary of the Religious Education Association, I corresponded with him on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the journal, Religious Education , and received a warm gracious reply. I visited him in that "upstairs room" in one of his last years and attended his memorial service in 1976. He was included in a chapter prepared for the special issue of the journal in 1978 on "Pioneers of Religious Education in the 20th Century." Coincidentally, his last published article appeared in 1966 in the magazine, Church School Worker , when one of my first articles was published.

So numerous were his organizational involvements and so prodigious were his efforts and achievements that a separate section in needed to call attention to them, even though some have been mentioned before. In his own words Weigle wrote: "Like others of active temperament, I have chaired from time to time, various committees, boards or associations. Four of these appointments have been of exceptional duration and importance." They were the American Association of Theological Schools, the World Sunday School Association, the Standard Bible Committee, and the National Council of Churches. In his memorial address in 1976 Gerald Knoff listed the many organizations that Weigle was connected to and added that in none of them was he "a back bencher, a honorary member, or a silent partner. He was a working and dependable colleague and worked in every instance, and in most of these duties he sat at the head of the table."

From 1928 to 1948, through most of his tenure as dean at YDS, Weigle was chairman of the executive committee of the American Association of Theological Schools and its predecessor Conference. As early as 1917 he had been involved in efforts to increase standards for educational leadership, theological education and the ordination of clergy. Biennial meetings of a Conference of seminaries in the U.S. and Canada began in 1918, and a study of the preparation of American ministers was completed in 1934. The AATS was constituted in 1936, Lewis J Sherrill, one of Weigle's doctoral students, became the executive secretary, and a plan for accrediting seminaries and improving standards was adopted.

The World Sunday School Association had its beginnings in 1889 in London. Weigle attended the ninth convention in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1924 and addressed the assembly. At the 1928 convention he was elected chairman and thus began a thirty-year period of leadership and a life-long friendship with the British leader, Sir Harold Mackintosh. In later years the name of the organization was changed to the World Council of Christian Education Sunday School Association, and another Weigle doctoral student, Forrest Knapp. served as the North American executive. Gerald Knoff has written its history in the 1979 book, The World Sunday School Movement , published by the Seabury Press.

An American translation of the Bible was published by Thomas Nelson and Sons in 1901, but there was a widespread feeling that it had lost some of the beauty and simplicity of the King James Version. The copyright was conveyed in 1928 to the International Council of Religious Education, representing forty Protestant denominations. An American Standard Bible Committee was formed, consisting of two sections, in Old Testament and New Testament, and Weigle was elected chairman in 1930. Meetings were held through the years at Yale, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and in Northfield, Massachusetts, in the summer. Roman Catholic scholars were added to the committee in 1966, along with a Jewish scholar, Harry Orlinsky. Herbert May of Oberlin succeeded Weigle as chairman in 1966, but Weigle continued to do much of the work as vice chairman until 1970.

Weigle was well suited to chair the planning committee for the National Council of Churches, which brought together twelve agencies in 1950. One of these was the International Council of Religious Education, for which Weigle had chaired several committees and commissions. Two of his doctoral students, Paul Vieth and Mary Alice Jones, had served on the staff, and its history had been recorded by William Clayton Bower and Percy Roy Hayward in their 1949 book, Protestantism Faces Its Educational Task Together . Weigle had also been active in another agency, the Federal Council of Churches, and had served as president in 1940-1942. In this capacity he chaired the coordinating committee for wartime service and helped develop the chaplaincy program. Because of his outstanding work on the planning committee, Weigle was made honorary chairman of the founding convention in 1950 in Cleveland.

These four long-term chairmanships tell only part of the story. Weigle had been a member of the Religious Education Association since 1914, had chaired two of its departments, and served on its council, the editorial committee and the board of directors. Founded in 1903 by William Rainey Harper, first president of the University of Chicago, the organization shaped the modern religious education movement. Even more than George Albert Coe, often called the "dean" of religious educators, Weigle embodied the vision and ideals of Harper because of their common interest in the best of biblical scholarship and a devotion to a comprehensive program of education. Weigle helped to plan policy and programs for the R.E.A. conventions, but resigned from its board in 1930. He returned in 1953 to give one of the three major addresses at the opening assembly of the golden anniversary convention in Pittsburgh.

Weigle attended the International Sunday School Association convention in Chicago in 1914 and became a member of the International Uniform Lesson Committee, charged with the task of updating the uniform lessons which had first been inaugurated in 1872. He was critical, however, of their un-graded approach and their resistance to modern pedagogy, psychological understandings and sound biblical scholarship. Meanwhile, the association evolved into the International Council of Religious Education.

Even before transferring his ministerial standing to the denomination, Weigle had been active in shaping the educational ministry of the Congregational Churches, serving as chairman of its editorial committee and of a commission on religious and moral education. In 1915 he also drafted a report on "The Present Status of Religious Education in Congregational Churches" for their national body, the General Council.

It is not generally known that Weigle was active in what was first called the Modern Missionary Movement and later A Movement for World Christianity, which lasted only until 1939; he chaired the committee of the research department. He supported the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry and its report, Rethinking Missions, issued in 1932.

Just as with the National Council of Churches, he was instrumental in developing plans for the formation of the World Council of Churches. Much has been written of the earlier conferences on Faith and Order and Life and Work which laid the foundations for the WCC. Weigle himself presented a forty-six page paper on "The Church and Christian Education" to the conference on Life and Work in Stockholm in 1925, and with J.H. Oldham he gave a significant report on world religious education at the International Missionary Conference in Jerusalem in 1928. He was on the planning team for the WCC in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 1938, but the organizational assembly was not held until 1948 in Amsterdam.

Closer to home, he was vice president of the Connecticut Council of Churches and Religious Education, and he chaired its education committee. He served on the boards of the Northfield Schools and the Hazen Foundation. He was president of Yale-in-China for ten years. He was invited to the inauguration in 1940 of President Roosevelt, and also served on the executive committee of the White House Conference on Children and Youth in 1950. Weigle was a member of the honorary fraternities, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Delta Kappa and Alpha Tau Omega, and was listed in Who's Who . The Weigles were active in the Church of the Redeemer (Congregational) in New Haven, not far from their home on Cold Spring Street. Weigle was a leader of adult education classes and discussion groups and was an occasional preacher.

First and foremost, Weigle's greatest contribution to Christian education was the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Gerald Knoff, in his memorial address, spoke of his outstanding leadership: "He was often a mediating influence, adroit in finding a way ahead when scholars disagreed. He was the interpreter of the work of translators to the courts of the churches and the trusted messenger of policy decisions … It has been said that it was he who hit upon the words of 'steadfast love' as a replacement for 'loving-kindness' as an attribute of God." It was Weigle's aim to bring the message of the Word of God to new generations with fresh power and meaning. It was his greatest achievement.

Weigle laid important philosophical and theological foundations for the field that he called Christian religious education. Roland Bainton wrote in his book, Yale and the Ministry : "Together with his late colleague, Robert Seneca Smith, Weigle deserves largely the credit of saving the Religious Education movement from the instrumentalism of John Dewey then rampant. Weigle conceived the department of Religious Education in a divinity school to assist ministers to think of the entire work in educational terms and specifically to prepare them to train their own Sunday School teachers." For Weigle, Christian religious education was an integral and essential part of the ministry of the church.

Weigle gained academic standing for the field of Christian education through his graduate program and the Yale Studies in the History and Theory of Religious Education. On July 3, 1969, he wrote a letter to George Stewart, author of the first book in the series: "I have never forgotten that you were my first PhD candidate and you really put graduate study in Religious Education on the map here at Yale by capturing the John Addison Porter prize." Robert Wood Lynn called the Yale studies "the most important single set of writings about the history of Protestant education. Much of the credit is due to Luther A. Weigle, the architect of the Yale Studies." Lynn speculated that the series was intended to serve the requirements of a newly emergent profession and bring respectability to the program. Under Weigle it was a profession "solidly rooted in an historical tradition and theological perspective."

A tradition of excellence in Christian education was established at Yale, which lasted through most of the 20th century. Weigle was the progenitor of an extended family of outstanding educators, who were pioneers and trailblazers in their own right. A veritable "genealogy" of Christian educators was generated at Yale under Weigle and those who succeeded him: First generation ­ Weigle; second generation (1910-1930) ­ H. Shelton Smith, Paul Vieth, Lewis J. Sherrill, Forest Knapp, Wilfred Powell; third generation (1930-1950) ­ Randolph Crump Miller, Mary Alice Jones, Gerald Knoff, Rachel Henderlite, Donald Maynard, Lawrence Little, Harold Pflug, Harrison Elliott, Clarence Shedd. After Weigle, under Vieth and Miller, a fourth generation (1950-1970) ­ Will Kennedy, Sara Little, Robert Wood Lynn, Harry Baker Adams, Donald Leonard, Findley Edge, Boardman Kathan, David Steward, Charles Melchert; fifth generation (1970-1990) ­ Norma Everist, Larry Axel. Even those who did not complete PhDs at Yale were drawn by Weigle's reputation and took courses with him, such as John Lobingier and Edna May Baxter.

Not only did Weigle help to guide the new profession and gain academic respectability and excellence, but he also led in the shaping of the educational ministry in the Protestant churches of North America. For the International Council of Religious Education he chaired the committee on basic philosophy and policies, which issued a report in 1940, "Christian Education Today." According to the report: "In recent years Christian education has been under fire from both of two extreme positions - from secular-minded humanism on the one hand and from arbitrary supernaturalism on the other … Christian education will not yield to the extremes. It is animated by Christian faith." The report reiterated the eight "Objectives of Religious Education," which had been developed at Yale by Paul Vieth and published in his 1930 book.

Weigle took the initiative in keeping Horace Bushnell's book, Christian Nurture , in print and in public awareness with editions in 1916, 1947 and 1967. In the introduction to the centenary version in 1947 Weigle wrote: "Horace Bushnell's Christian Nurture is as significant today as when it was published one hundred years ago. Modern psychology and sociology have confirmed its insights, and the best of modern education is in its spirit." The book has contributed much to the Protestant understanding of Baptism and its implications for education in the family and the church.

Much has already been said about his leadership in reforming theological education and in establishing Christian education as an important discipline within it. Even in retirement he urged that a new study be done of the theological schools of North America, and it eventuated in the momentous report summarized in the book, The Purpose of the Church and its Ministry , by H. Richard Niebuhr. The study was famous for its definition of the goal of the church "as the increase among men of the love of God and neighbor" and the role of the minister as "pastoral director," which embraced the tasks of preaching and teaching.

Before the term was common, Weigle was an ecumenist, a pioneer in inter-church and ecumenical relations, both at home and overseas, and his aim was to strengthen those relations in Christian education. Weigle was instrumental in establishing a strong Division of Christian Education within the National Council of Churches and a close working relationship between the World Council of Christian Education and the World Council of Churches. Along with John R. Mott, Robert E. Speer and Henry Smith Leiper, he was one of the chief American leaders in the world ecumenical movement.

Not as well known was his work in the modern missionary movement and the importance of the task of Christian education. He had given a vigorous report on religious education to the International Missionary Council in Jerusalem in 1928. Even though he supported the work of the Laymen's Inquiry, he joined with E. Stanley Jones and other leaders to write The Christian Message for the World Today in 1934.

His work in China deserves special mention. At the invitation of the Chinese Christian churches Weigle had spent six months there in 1935 visiting colleges and seminaries and attending conferences. He was accompanied by his wife, his son Richard and his daughter Ruth. One result was the formation of an association of theological seminaries in the country. In his history, Knoff called the trip "perhaps the most significant field service of this period." Throughout his career Weigle worked on the relationship between Christian education and worship, both private and public, for families as well as for churches. He developed a course on the educational aspects of worship, wrote a book on the subject with a colleague, and explored extensively the subject of the use of the Bible in worship. Weigle wrote the preface to the 1931 edition of the Pilgrim Hymnal for the Congregational Churches, saying: "It expresses our faith in Christ and in the God whom he reveals, and it seeks to bring this faith to bear upon the new problems and movements of our time." After the RSV New Testament was completed, he was distressed by the 1946 Chicago Tribune article, "Bible loses its song," a criticism that the song and music of the King James Version had been lost in the new translation, and he countered with his own lists of phrases from the RSV that could be set to music. In 1957 he published an article on "The Use of the RSV in Liturgy and Education."

A final and, perhaps, more controversial contribution was his attempt to apply his Christian faith to issues of public policy, especially the place of religion in public education. It is not clear whether Weigle was ever a member of the National Reform Association, an organization which tried for generations to add a "Christian nation" amendment to the U.S. Constitution and which led the movement for state legislatures to mandate prayer and Bible reading in the public schools, beginning in 1911. However, Weigle did write an introduction to two of their books: God in our public schools , by W. S. Fleming in 1942, and Our public school ­ Christian or secular by R.H. Martin. In an article published in 1947 in the magazine, Social Action, Weigle believed that the United States was a Christian nation, "in the sense that the Christian religion is the faith of the great majority of our citizens, and that the Judaeo-Christian principles of morality underlie and sustain our life and are to a great extent embodied in our laws."

So strongly did he feel on the subject that he was an "expert witness" in 1958 in the case of Schempp v. Abington in the U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania. Weigle proposed that the Bible was not a sectarian book and that reading ten verses from the Bible and using the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of the school day was not sectarian. His opinion was that reading the Bible had educational and high literary value as well as being a custom in keeping with the values and traditions of American life. When asked to define "sectarian," he said: "A movement is sectarian when it is meant to establish the distinctive doctrine of some particular sect as opposed to the doctrines of other sects."

The U.S. Supreme Court declared prayer and Bible reading unconstitutional in its 1962 and 1963 decisions in the cases of Engel v. Vitale from New York State and the Murray and Schempp cases from Maryland and Pennsylvania. There was a great public outcry and many attempts were made to amend the Constitution. On April 27, 1964, Weigle wrote a letter to the Honorable Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in which he set forth his views. Weigle believed in the separation of Church and State, but he did not feel that this required the government and the schools to be godless. Neutrality was proper in relation to different religions, but neutrality about God meant denial. He mailed copies of his article published in 1950 in the magazine, Christianity and Crisis , and he urged support of an amendment proposed by Congressman Frank Becker of New York, which would permit prayers and Bible reading in schools and public places, and would allow the invoking of God or a Supreme Being in public places and documents. Weigle, today, would be a strong supporter of retaining the words "under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance. The phrase, "one nation under God," would seem to be a part of the canon or creed for Weigle's entire life.

Works Cited

Unless otherwise cited, all information in this article is taken from the Luther Allan Weigle Archives, located at the Sterling Library of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

• Bainton, R. H. (1957). Yale and the ministry . San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row.
• Bower, W. C., & Hayward, P. R. (1949). Protestantism faces its educational task together . Appleton, WI: C.C. Nelson Publishing Co.
• Bushnell, H. (1947). Christian Nurture . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Knoble, J. (1971, February, 14). A lifetime of making God the ultimate concern. REACH , 6 (1), 3-4. Reprinted from the New Haven Register .
• Knoff, G. (1977). Luther Allan Weigle, 1880-1976. Religious Education , LXII (1), 85-90.
• Knoff, G. (1979). The World Sunday School Movement . New York: The Seabury Press.
• Lynn, R. W. (1972). The uses of history: An inquiry into the history of American religious education. Religious Education , LXVII (2), 83-97.
• Niebuhr, H. R. (1956). The purpose of the church and its ministry . New York: Harper & Bros. Pilgrim Hymnal . (1931). Boston and Chicago: The Pilgrim Press.
• Weigle, L. A. (1950). Freedom of religion and education. Christianity and Crisis , X, 98-103.
• Weigle, L. A. (1947). The American tradition of religious freedom. Social Action , XIII (9), 5-14.
• Weigle, L. A. (Ed.). (1940). Christian education today . Chicago: International Council of Religious Education.
• Weigle, L. A. (1933). The religious education of a Protestant. In V. Ferm, (Ed.), Contemporary American theology: Theological autobiographies (pp. 309-340). New York: Round Table Press.
• Weigle, R. (Ed.) (1976). The glory days: From the life of Luther Allan Weigle . New York: Friendship Press.