Georgia Elma Harkness

Georgia Elma Harkness (1891–1974) was an American Methodist theologian, philosopher, teacher, minister, ecumenist, social ethicist, poet, and hymn writer. Born in the hamlet of Harkness in northern New York, she joined the Methodist Church as a girl and later won a scholarship to Cornell University, graduating in 1912. After several years teaching languages in public schools, she pursued religious education and theology and earned a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1923 under philosopher Edgar S. Brightman. She also undertook further study at Harvard, Yale, and Union Theological Seminary.

Harkness taught at Elmira College, Mount Holyoke College, Garrett Biblical Institute, and Pacific School of Religion. In 1939 she became the first woman appointed to a full-time professorship in theological studies at an American Protestant seminary. She was ordained locally as a Methodist deacon in 1926 and elder in 1938, while continuing to press for full ministerial equality for women.

Her theology joined personal faith with social responsibility, ecumenism, peace, racial justice, and the public vocation of the church. She participated in the emerging World Council of Churches and challenged leading theologians over the place of women in Christian leadership. Across more than thirty books she addressed ethics, prayer, providence, church and society, and Christian hope. Representative works include Prayer and the Common Life, The Providence of God, and Women in Church and Society. Her hymns and prayers similarly combine theological reflection with concern for a troubled world and the church’s responsibility within it.