Building the Kingdom

Almost as soon as he took office in 1953, Harvard's President Nathan Pusey made one thing clear: whatever else he might accomplish, he was determined to put new life into the Divinity School. The school had long suffered from neglect. It was operating with only three full-time professors, had not had a major fund-raising campaign between 1879 and 1949. Though a special committee set up by President Conant did urge that Harvard once again become "a strong center of religious learning," few alumni seemed to care whether Divinity survived or not.

By last week President Pusey was able to announce the beginning of a whole new "chapter in the history of the Divinity School." Partly through the efforts of a group of alumni, and partly because of the interest shown by Episcopalian Pusey himself, the school is already at the halfway mark of the $7,000,000 endowment goal set in 1952. More important, it has taken on a new mission. Once known for a methodical sort of scholarship inherited from the theologians of 19th century Germany, it now intends to become an active leader of organized Protestant religion. To that end President Pusey and Acting Dean George Williams have been trying to collect a faculty of "men who are both churchmen and scholars." Their latest appointments:

P: Episcopalian John D. Wild, 52, of the Harvard philosophy department, authority on Aristotelian realism, acid critic of positivism and existentialism. His course at Divinity: medieval scholasticism.

P:Congregationalist Amos N. Wilder, 59, former professor of New Testament at Chicago Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago. Famed as both poet and theologian (as well as for being the brother of Novelist Thornton), Amos Wilder specializes in the field of eschatology.

P:Lutheran Krister Stendahl, 33, one of Sweden's most brilliant Christian scholars, authority on the first century school of St. Matthew, avid apostle of Sweden's highly intellectual Christian youth movement.

P:German-born Paul Tillich, 67, ordained minister in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, former professor of philosophical theology at Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary, and foremost exponent of a systematic Protestant theology which can, "without losing its Christian foundations, incorporate strictly scientific methods, a critical philosophy, a realistic under standing of men and society, and powerful ethical principles and motives."

P:John Dillenberger, 36, also of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, close associate of Theologian Tillich.

P:Presbyterian George Buttrick, 62, pastor of Manhattan's Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, which he will leave the first of next year, and eloquent preacher. He will teach homiletics and pastoral theology, will, hold the Plummer Professor ship of Christian Morals, whose occupant must be, according to its founder, "a Professor of the Philosophy of the heart, and of the moral, physical and Christian life in Harvard University."

Looking over his appointments, President Pusey had reason to be pleased. Said he: "We hope to achieve as broad a range of churchmanship as possible. We are in a sense starting over. This is not surprising, since the task of building the Kingdom is never done, and the work needs always to be begun afresh."

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