Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,663

This is the grave of Theodore Ainsworth Greene.

So this is a guy almost totally unknown to me and without even a Wikipedia page, but a short post from what I can gather will suffice and I think make it clear enough why it’s worth spending a moment on him in this series.

Green was born in 1890 and went to Amherst College. He became a prominent minister with a deep connection to ecumenicalism and peace. I believe he was Presbyterian, as I see he published some material in their journals. He got something of a reputation in his day for preaching about peace in a time when there wasn’t a lot of peace in the world. He wrote some prominent pieces, including What Christians Can Do for Peace and Worship Services for Peace and Brotherhood. He was also the head of the National Council of Churches of Christ. This is a group of 38 different faith traditions within American Christianity getting together for various projects, many of which are about peace, ecology, and other liberal Christian politics. He died in 1951.

This is honestly all I can glean about the man without doing very real research that I don’t have time for in this series. But I will make one point here I hope is valuable. I’ve talked a good bit lately about the decline of liberal institutions. How do you fight to create political education when we’ve lost every forum where non-fascists get together in person? The decline of the union, the social club, the Elks lodge, the bowling alley, and very much the mainstream Protestant churches has had an enormously negative political impact on our nation. Today, the left-of-fascists are completely atomized. The internet has replaced some of this, but only in the worst possible way. I struggle to see how we are going to get a consistent anti-fascist political message that lasts more than one election cycle without rebuilding American liberal institutions in some way. Note that I don’t have a clue how to do this. But I can say this–if there were more Presbyterians preaching peace and representing a liberal turn in Christianity that is very much part of American history but which is now almost completely lost, we’d all be a heck of a lot better off. I am confirmed agnostic and Americans today are less religious than they ever have been in their history. That’s because lots of people, especially younger than I am, who have left Christianity entirely, not for theological reasons but because it is so associated with the worst people and politics.

So hey, maybe a few more Theodore Ainsworth Greens, laboring to make the world a better place and not make it about them, would be really good for Christianity and for all of us.

Theodore Ainsworth Greene is buried in Old Burying Ground, Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire.

If you would like this series to visit other American religious figures, presumably people I can wrote more than 200 words about, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Billy Graham, very much part of the problem, is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Pat Robertson is in Virginia Beach, Virginia and oh god that would be fun. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.