Robert Elliott Speer

Robert Elliott Speer (born Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, 10 September 1867 – 23 November 1947[1]) was an American Presbyterian religious leader and an authority on missions.

For other persons with the surname of Speer, see Speer.

Robert Elliott Speer
Born(1867-09-10)10 September 1867
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died23 November 1947(1947-11-23) (aged 80)
Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, USA

Biography

He was born at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on 10 September 1867. He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1886 and from Princeton in 1889, and studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1890–91.

He became active as an itinerant recruiter for the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) from 1889 to 1890.[2]

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 influenced by Arthur Tappan Pierson. Under his leadership, the foreign missions of the Presbyterian church became remarkably successful. Speer retired in 1937.

He married Emma Doll Bailey in 1893 and, together, they had five children, one of whom, Elliot Speer (1898 – 1934), became headmaster of Northfield Mount Hermon School, where he was murdered in his home on campus, on 14 September 1934.[3] Their daughter Margaret Bailey Speer (1900–1997) was dean of Yenching Women's College in China in the 1930s, and headmistress of the Shipley School from 1944 to 1965.[4]

He died on 3 November 1947, in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.

Theology

Although he published two articles in The Fundamentals,[5] some have called him liberal because he sided with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and opposed John Gresham Machen during the anti-liberal/modernist controversies of the 1930s.[6][7] Speer affirmed traditional Christian doctrines such as the historical accuracy of the Bible, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection of Christ, yet also embraced a social vision of Christianity placed him closer to theological liberals than some conservatives would tolerate.[8] He is quoted to have said that Karl Barth offered "an essential recovery of aspects of truth which will not so easily be lost again."[9]

Influence

Speer wrote numerous sermons, articles, pamphlets, and books among which are biographies, biblical commentaries and books on Christian living. Most deal with missionary principles and practices but some tackle controversial social problems.[2] He coined the famous four principles of Jesus which became embedded in Moral Rearmament[10] and in Alcoholics Anonymous[11] as the "Four Absolutes" or the "Four Standards". Basing his views on his own biblical research, Speer regarded these four principles as one of Jesus' key teachings: Purity, Honesty, Unselfishness and Love.[12] While the initiator of Moral Rearmament, Dr Frank Buchman, held Robert E. Speer in high regard,[10] he used a version of the four principles which had been reworked by Pr Henry Burt Wright from Yale.[13]

Publications
  • The Man Christ Jesus (1896)
  • A Memorial of a True Life: Biography of H. M. Beaver (1898)
  • The Man Paul (1900)
  • Presbyterian Foreign Missions (1901)
  • Missionary Principles and Practice (1902)
  • The Principles of Jesus (1902) (on line text)
  • A Memorial of Horace Tracy Pitkin (1903)
  • Young Man's Questions (1903)
  • Missions and Modern History (two volumes, 1904)
  • The Marks of a Man (1907)
  • Christianity and the Nations (1910)
  • The Light of the World (1911)
  • South American Problems (1912)
  • Studies of Missionary Leadership (1914)
  • John's Gospel (1915)
  • The Stuff of Manhood (1917)
  • The Christian Man the Church and the War (1918)
  • The Gospel and the New World (1919)
  • A Missionary Pioneer in the Far East (1922)
  • Seeking the Mind of Christ (1926)
  • The Unity of the Americas (1926)
  • Some Living Issues (1930)
  • The Finality of Jesus Christ (1933)
  • Five Minutes a Day (1943)
  • George Bowen of Bombay (1938)

See also

Notes
  1. Lefferts A. Loetscher (1974). "Speer, Robert Elliott". Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Four 1946-1950. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  2. Anderson, Gerald H. (1998). Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. p. 197. ISBN 9780802846808. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  3. Madera Tribune, Volume LXX, Number 22, 26 May 1937; California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  4. Raftery, Kay (25 September 1997). "Margaret Speer, 96, educator". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 32. Retrieved 3 November 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Chapter 28 "God in Christ the Only Revelation of the Fatherhood of God" (originally, Chapter III Volume III, pp.61-75) and Chapter 54 "Foreign Missions, or World-Wide Evangelism" (originally, Chapter IV Volume ?, pp.64-84)
  6. 1933 Book review
  7. Machen-Speer Debate–Historic Event in Presbyterian Church Christianity Today 3.12 (Mid-April 1933): 19-2
  8. Bradley J. Longfield, "The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates" (New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 7
  9. Piper 2000, p. 50.
  10. Boobyer, Philipp (2013). The Spiritual Vision of Frank Buchman. Penn State Press. p. 22. ISBN 9780271062945.
  11. "Origins of Moral Inventory, Moral Inventory backdrop". The AA Original Way Group website. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  12. Robert E. Speer (1902). The Principles of Jesus. New York: Fleming H. Revell. p. 33-35.
  13. Dick B. "The Four Absolutes - Their Source, Application, and Significance". silkworth.net website, your global resource for AA history. Retrieved 24 May 2018.

References
Attribution
Religious titles
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
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