Joseph Houldsworth Oldham

Nationality

United Kingdom

Date of Birth

1874

Date of Death

1969

Political
Preference

Joseph Houldworth Oldham was a Scottish missionary in India, who was active in the Christian ecumenical movement. Born and raised in India until the age of 7, Oldham’s family moved back to the United Kingdom, where he graduated from Trinity College, Oxford. He worked as a missionary for the Scottish Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and as editor of the International Review of Missions. After World War I, he lobbied for the inclusion of Article 438 of the Versailles Treaty, which posits that the property of German missions in territories ceded to the Allies should be put in a trust. A supporter of European integration, he became general secretary of the International Missionary Council from 1921 to 1938 and was highly influential in the creation of the World Council of Churches. From 1938 to 1947, he participated in the Christian think tank ‘The Moot’ dealing with post-reconstruction and he wrote and edited material for the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) and the Conference of Church, Community, and State (Oxford Conference) in 1937. Oldham initiated the Christian Frontier Council, a group that dealt with Christian values in relation to secular values. He also collaborated with the ideas, values and conferences of the Peace Aims Group (PAG), a British ecumenical wartime group discussing the post-war order. For the WCC Amsterdam Assembly in 1948, he wrote an influential paper titled ‘The Responsible Society’, a blueprint for ecumenical thinking about social and economic policies until at least the second WCC Assembly in 1954.