Harry Emerson Fosdick

Harry Emerson Fosdick was an American Baptist minister, preacher, professor, author, and leading representative of liberal Protestantism in the twentieth century. Born in Buffalo, New York, he graduated from Colgate University in 1900 and studied at Union Theological Seminary, where he later taught homiletics and practical theology for decades. Ordained as a Baptist minister in 1903, he served First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey, and volunteered as an Army chaplain in France during the First World War.

Fosdick became nationally prominent while preaching at First Presbyterian Church in New York. His 1922 sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” made him a central figure in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and eventually contributed to his departure from that pulpit. He then served Park Avenue Baptist Church and became the founding minister of the interdenominational Riverside Church, built with major support from John D. Rockefeller Jr. Fosdick remained at Riverside until his retirement in 1946.

He wrote God of Grace and God of Glory in 1930 for Riverside Church’s opening and dedication period. Beyond hymnody, his sermons, books, radio ministry, social-gospel commitments, and advocacy of ecumenism and civil rights influenced later American Protestant leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr.