Abraham Johannes Muste (1885-1967), American pacifist, led the movement for world peace and pioneered in developing nonviolent resistance as a means of securing social change.

On Jan. 8, 1885, A. J. Muste was born in Zierikzee, the Netherlands. His family emigrated to America six years later. He was raised in Grand Rapids, Mich., and attended Hope College, a church-affiliated school. In 1906 he entered the Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church in New Brunswick, N.J., and was ordained in 1909. That same year he married Anna Huizenga.

While first minister of Fort Washington Collegiate Church in New York City, Muste attended Union Theological Seminary, where he received a bachelor of divinity degree magna cum laude in 1913. Strongly influenced by liberal theological doctrines and shocked by the wretchedness of the urban poor, he became increasingly socially committed. In 1914 he gave up his conservative parish to become minister of the Central Congregational...