Robert Elliott Speer (1867 – 1947) was an American religious leader and authority on missions.
He was born at Huntingdon, Pa., graduated from Phillips Academy in 1886 and from Princeton in 1889, and studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1890-91. In 1891 he was appointed secretary of the American Presbyterian Mission. He visited missions in Persia, India, China, Korea, and Japan in 1896-97, and in South America in 1909 and later made similar tours. In Princeton he was greatly influnced by Arthur Tappan Pierson. Under his leadership the foreign missions of the Presbyterian church became remarkably successful. Although he published two articles in the The Fundamentals,[1] he is often considered a liberal because he sided with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and opposed John Gresham Machen during the anti-liberal/modernist controversies of the 1930's.[2][3]
Including some of his inspirational books, he published:
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| Preceded by The Rev. William Oxley Thompson |
Moderator of the 139th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 1927–1928 |
Succeeded by The Rev. Hugh Kelso Walker |