1878-1969
Minister and Professor

Prominent Protestant.

Harry Emerson Fosdick was one of the major voices of liberal Protestantism in the middle of the twentieth century. As pastor of the spectacular, nondenominational Riverside Church in New York City and as the leading Protestant speaker on radio, he helped to define the personality and meaning of mainline Protestantism for thirty years.

Early Recognition.

Fosdick was born in upstate New York and entered the Baptist ministry after graduating from Union Theological Seminary in New York. His talents and abilities were quickly recognized. He became professor of practical theology at Union in 1911 and taught there until he retired in 1946. In 1918, even though he was a Baptist, he was called to the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City. In 1922 he attracted national notoriety when he preached a sermon called "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?," which entered him...