Henry P. van Dusen

Nationality

U.S.A.

Date of Birth

1897

Date of Death

1975

Political
Preference

Henry Pitney ‘Pit’ Van Dusen was an American ecumenist. He was deeply involved in the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) as an undergraduate at Princeton University, and in 1933 he organised a Theological Discussion Group to examine contemporary issues and its relation to Christianity. The discussion group included fellow theologians and ecumenists Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. Through studying political and international problems, this group arrived at a so-called interventionist position: its members wanted the US to intervene in the Second World War when its ally, Great Britain, was attacked. Opposing these interventionists like Van Dusen were the non-interventionists like Harry Emerson Fosdick and Walter W. Van Kirk.

Van Dusen was an avid internationalist and contributed substantially to the creation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948. He was also Secretary of the Federal Council of Churches in America and played a key role in the WCC discussions about peace aims throughout World War II in the Commission for a Just and Durable Peace, and, when he would visit England, the Peace Aims Group (PAG). In these debates, Van Dusen suggested that a European federation would be best suited with Great Britain as its leader, and believed that the Church should offer a safe place for all races, genders and classes.