John Haynes Holmes , 1879-1964, American clergyman, b. Philadelphia, grad. Harvard, 1902, and Harvard Divinity School, 1904. For 42 years (1907-49) he was minister of the Community Church, New York City; in 1949 he became pastor emeritus. The church belonged to the Unitarian denomination until 1919, when it became nondenominational. The causes supported by Holmes's effective public addresses included the abolition of intolerance and of war. A founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and of the American Civil Liberties Union, he was long actively associated with both organizations. Among his many books are A Sensible Man's View of Religion (1932) and The Affirmation of Immortality (1947).

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1959); study by C. H. Voss (1964).

John Haynes Holmes

John Haynes Holmes (1879-1964), American clergyman, was one of the foremost figures of the Social Gospel movement in 20th-century American Protestantism.

John Haynes Holmes was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on Nov. 29, 1879, the son of an unsuccessful but bookish businessman. Raised in Malden, Mass., young Holmes was educated at Harvard College and Harvard Divinity School, where he received his degree in 1904. That year he married Madeleine Baker. From 1904 to 1907 he served as minister to the Third Religious Society of Dorchester and then accepted the pastorate at New York's Unitarian Church of the Messiah. He served as president of the General Unitarian Conference and of the Free Religious Association in the years before World War I, but in 1919 he resigned his ministerial fellowship in the Unitarian Church. His congregation followed their independent minister, changing the name of their church to the Community Church of New York. Under Holmes's guidance the church became famous for its programs of civic education and social service.

Holmes said that his "passion" was "religion—liberal, or radical, religion," and he wrote widely on the need to transform traditional religious ideas and structures. The independent pastor was well known for his political and social activities. A pacifist, he refused to support the U.S. government in World Wars I or II. When he later discovered the work of Mahatma Gandhi, he helped make the Indian leader known in the United States.

In 1906 Holmes was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); he served as its vice president until the end of his life. He also helped establish the American Civil Liberties Union, and he actively participated in every major civil liberties controversy, notably as the leading clerical defender of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the famous 1927 trial. In New York City he served as chairman of the City Affairs Committee, a citizens' group combating political corruption.

An advocate of socialism, Holmes defended labor unions and social legislation. He traveled widely, including a trip to Palestine on behalf of American Zionists in 1929 and another to India in 1947 as a lecturer. On all these matters of public concern he wrote and lectured across the country. His writings also included a book of short stories, a play (produced in New York during the 1935-1936 season), and several poems and hymns. In 1949 he resigned his pastorate, but he continued to write and speak publicly until his death in 1964, at the age of 85.

Further Reading

The best source on Holmes is his own I Speak for Myself: The Autobiography of John Haynes Holmes (1959). A biographical study is in Carl H. Voss, Rabbi and Minister: The Friendship of Stephen S. Wise and John Haynes Holmes (1964).

Additional Sources

Voss, Carl Hermann, Rabbi and minister: the friendship of Stephen S. Wise and John Haynes Holmes, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1980. □

HOLMES, JOHN HAYNES 1879-1964

Minister

Pacifist

John Haynes Holmes was a leading political and religious liberal in the first half of the twentieth century. He was ordained in the American Unitarian Association in 1904 and in 1907 moved to the Church of the Messiah in New York City, where he remained until he retired in 1949. He was deeply disturbed by World War I and helped organize the American branch of the pacifist organization the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He was a leader in the American Union Against Militarism, an umbrella organization that opposed American involvement in World War I. The controversy over his pacifist views caused him and his church to leave the Unitarian Association, and the name of the congregation was changed to the Community Church. Following the lead of Holmes, the Community Church remained one of the most active liberal groups in the nation.

Civil Liberties

After the United States entered the war in 1917, Holmes helped to create an organization to protect the rights of pacifists to resist conscription into the military. After the war the Civil Liberties Bureau became the American Civil Liberties Bureau, later the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Holmes remained active with the ACLU and its efforts to protect the constitutional rights of free speech throughout his life.

Social Critic

Holmes believed that the horrors of the Great War came in part from the deep flaws of capitalism and its connection with imperialism. He was sharply critical of the two leading American political parties and sought to create an alternative political alliance that would bring together the nation's progressive forces to create true reform. He was not a Marxist and had reservations about aspects of socialism, but his antiwar beliefs committed him to supporting the Socialist Party, which opposed most conflicts. He was a close associate of Norman Thomas, a former Presbyterian minister, and supported Thomas in his various campaigns on the Socialist ticket in the 1920s, including Thomas's first campaign for the presidency on the Socialist Party ticket in 1928. Thomas was soundly beaten, and in 1929 Holmes joined other liberals in organizing the League for Independent Political Action. But the league failed to create a new political coalition, and again in 1932 and afterward Holmes supported Thomas's campaign efforts.

Antiwar Efforts

In the 1930s Holmes worked actively to stop war, a commitment that led to his being named honorary chair of the War Resisters' League; he also became an ally of the Keep America Out of War Committee. While he opposed war as barbaric and useless, he had no illusions about totalitarian states, either of the Left or the Right. When war finally came after the 1939 German-Soviet nonaggression pact and the American Communist Party shifted its position to oppose the collective security policies it had favored up to the outbreak of war, Holmes joined others on the board of directors of the ACLU to force those close to the Communist position from the board of directors. Holmes replaced Harry F. Ward as chair of the ACLU as the threat of war and its challenges to civil liberties moved closer to the United States.

Sources:

John Haynes Holmes, Rethinking Religion (New York; Macmillan, 1938);

Holmes, A Sensible Man's Guide to Religion (New York: Harper, 1932).