Garfield Bromley Oxnam

Background

Garfield Bromley Oxnam was born on August 14, 1891, in Sonora, California, the son of Thomas Henry Oxnam, a mining engineer, and of Mary Ann Jobe.

Education

Garfield Oxnam began his elementary education at Delamar, Nevada, and entered Los Angeles High School in 1905. Forced to leave school by his father's ill health and the panic of 1907, Oxnam worked briefly and completed a year of business school before entering the University of Southern California in 1909. While there, he attended lectures by Alexander Berkman and Eugene V. Debs and read American labor history. After graduating with the B. A. in 1913, Oxnam entered Boston University, where he studied with the radical social ethicist Harry F. Ward. He received the B. S. T. from Boston in 1915 and did further study at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Career

In 1916, Oxnam was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church and began his ministry at Poplar, California. A year later he moved to the Church of All Nations in Los Angeles, where he served as pastor until 1927. He taught social ethics at the University of Southern California from 1919 to 1923, when his first book, The Social Principles of Jesus, was published. Oxnam traveled extensively throughout his career. He visited the Soviet Union with an American delegation in 1926 and published Russian Impressions the following year. In 1928, after serving for a year as professor of practical theology and citychurch at Boston University's School of Theology, he was named president of DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana. His tolerance of dancing and abolition of compulsory military training quickly won the approval of students and the enmity of the American Legion.

As secretary of the World Peace Commission and a member of the Methodist Federation for Social Service, Oxnam became a leading spokesman for his denomination's progressives. Frightened that Methodists had turned "socialistic, " Elizabeth Dilling accused him of being a key agent in her Red Network (1934). Nevertheless, Oxnam served three times as a delegate to quadrennial General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church and in 1936 was elected a bishop and assigned to Omaha, Nebraska. Three years later he was reassigned to Boston. Although an early advocate of American intervention in World War II, Oxnam worked to protect the rights of conscientious objectors throughout the war.

In The Ethical Ideals of Jesus in a Changing World (1941) he commented upon the social creed that he had long espoused: the solidarity of the human race, the supremacy of the common good, and equal rights for all. He insisted that people, not things, are the goal of social living; that cooperation, not selfish competition, is the law of progress; and that love, not force, is the social bond. In 1941, Oxnam convened an exploratory conference on the bases of a just and lasting peace, and in 1943 he launched a crusade for a new world order, developing public support for a strong world peace organization at the end of the war. Yet, with two sons in uniform, he defended Allied bombing policy in Europe as a means to ending the war quickly.

While in Boston, Oxnam persuaded William Cardinal O'Connell to join him in a denunciation of anti-Semitism, but after his move to New York City in 1944, he engaged the Roman Catholic hierarchy in battle over other issues. He attacked the denial of religious liberty in Spain, Colombia, and Argentina; opposed federal aid to parochial schools; and led Protestant opposition to the appointment of an American emissary to the Vatican after World War II. When Oxnam helped to found Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in 1948, Francis Cardinal Spellman and Archbishop Richard Cushing charged him with "unhooded and refined klansmanship. " Nevertheless, he became a leader in postwar Protestant ecumenism. He served as president of the Federal Council of Churches from 1944 to 1946, was one of six founding presidents of the World Council of Churches from 1948 to 1954, and presided at the organization of the National Council of Churches in 1950.

In 1952, when Oxnam had become bishop of Washington, D. C. , the leadership of the House Un-American Activities Committee was threatening an investigation of Communist infiltration of American churches. When Oxnam questioned the competence of the committee's "vermillion vigilantes, " Representative Donald Jackson charged that he was "to the Communist front what Man O'War was to thoroughbred horse racing" and that he "served God on Sunday and the Communist front for the balance of the week. " Oxnam appeared before the committee on July 21, 1953, to demand that it clear its files of unsubstantiated charges against him and to challenge the constitutionality of methods used to discredit patriotic Americans. He forced the committee to acknowledge that it had no evidence of Communist sympathy against him, thus striking a crucial blow against McCarthyism.

In I Protest (1954), Oxnam expanded upon his objections to the committee's methods. A stocky, square-jawed man with a powerful voice, who looked and dressed like a businessman, Oxnam sometimes irritated corporate executives by his defense of labor's interests. He might well have been remembered as the extraordinarily able administrator that he was, but his challenge to the House Un-American Activities Committee etched him on the memory of his generation as a man determined to defend American civil liberties. Oxnam remained active until 1960, when the effects of Parkinson's disease forced his retirement. He died in White Plains, New York.

Achievements

• Garfield Oxnam served as president of DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana. He also served as president of the Federal Council of Churches (1944-1946), was one of six founding presidents of the World Council of Churches (1948-1954), and presided at the organization of the National Council of Churches (1950). Garfield Oxnam's major works: The Social Principles of Jesus (1923); Russian Impressions (1927); The Ethical Ideals of Jesus in a Changing World (1941); I Protest (1954).

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Testament Of Faith

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Behold Thy Mother

    (a tribute to mothers with prints of famous mothers. A war...)

  • Personalities in social reform
  • By this sign conquer;: A study in contemporary crucifixion and crusade,
  • Facing the future unafraid, by G. Bromley Oxnam
  • Labor and tomorrow's world (The Fondren lectures for 1944, Southern Methodist University)
  • I Protest: My Experience With the House Committee on Un-American Activities

Membership

Garfield Oxnam was a member of the Methodist Federation for Social Service.

Connections

Garfield Oxnam was married to Ruth Fisher, the daughter of a wealthy California oilman, on August 19, 1914. They had three children.

Father:

Thomas Henry Oxnam

He was a mining engineer.

Mother:

Mary Ann (Jobe) Oxnam

Wife:

Ruth (Fisher) Oxnam

Son:

Philip Holmes Oxnam

References

• Bishop G Bromley Oxnam