Henry Cadbury

Henry Joel Cadbury (December 1, 1883 – October 7, 1974) was a biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, and non-profit administrator. A graduate of Haverford College, he was a Quaker throughout his life, though essentially an agnostic.^[1] Forced out of his teaching position at Haverford for writing an anti-war letter to the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in 1918, he saw the experience as a milestone, leading him to larger service beyond his Orthodox Religious Society of Friends. He was offered a position in the Divinity School at Harvard University, from which he had received his Ph.D, but he first rejected its teacher's oath for reasons of conscience, the Quaker insistence on telling the truth, and as a form of social activism. He later accepted the Hollis Professorship (1934–1954). He also was the director of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library (1938–1954), and chairman (1928–1934; 1944–1960) of the American Friends Service Committee, which he had helped found in 1917. He delivered the Nobel lecture on behalf of the AFSC when it accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends.

References

• Bacon, Margaret H., Let This Life Speak: The Legacy of Henry Joel Cadbury. U of Pennsylvania P, 1987. ISBN 0-8122-8045-8.

External links

• Philadelphia Inquirer obituary
• Nobel Peace Prize lecture