Background
Schoonover, Melvin Eugene was born on August 22, 1926 in Francesville, Indiana, United States. Son of Charles and Alma Louise (Garrigues) Schoonover.
(Making All Things Human' is a story of Christianity in ac...)
Making All Things Human' is a story of Christianity in action, an account of the struggles faced by a courageous white minister and his largely African-American and Puerto Rican parish in New York's East Harlem. It celebrates ways in which the people of East Harlem and the Chambers Baptist Church, working with courage, imagination, and humor, cut through the layers of indifference to make New York more human and more humane.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592444105/?tag=2022091-20
(In the five long letters which follow, her father-himself...)
In the five long letters which follow, her father-himself afflicted with the same disease-attempts to describe for his daughter the freedom he has found. It is a liberation, he explains, made possible not simply in spite of his illness, but to a significant extent just because of it. It is a liberation which is, in fact, the gift of affliction. Melvin Schoonover isn't trying to kid anyone, least of all his daughter. He knows first-hand the emotional and physical agony brought about by his handicap; confined to a wheelchair, he has experienced the limitations on his movements, the appalling insensitivity of which some of us are capable when exposed to a 'cripple' And he tells her about those experiences, and the effect they had on his childhood, his education, his travel, his career. He knows, better than most of us, how bad it can be. Yet he is able to write In many ways I consider myself to be among the most privileged of men . . . . And he adds: That is why I have decided to write you these letters . . . to share some things with you that the end of the struggle is not despair, but hope and joy. It is hope and joy that emerge most forcefully in these 'Letters to Polly' The bitterness is there, too, of course; and the anger , the impatience, the frustration. Schoonover is too honest to deny, or to attempt to disguise, the burdens of affliction. But neither his life nor his letters end on that note. They end, instead, in the joy and confidence he has found in Jesus of Nazareth. His final victory over evil and suffering and death, he tells Polly, gives me hope that we-and all men-can and shall reach the kingdom. There the physical burdens will be laid aside, and the walls of separation between human beings shall be torn down, and we shall all be free to love and live as we were always intended to do.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006CPMTG/?tag=2022091-20
(In the five long letters which follow, her father-himself...)
In the five long letters which follow, her father-himself afflicted with the same disease-attempts to describe for his daughter the freedom he has found. It is a liberation, he explains, made possible not simply in spite of his illness, but to a significant extent just because of it. It is a liberation which is, in fact, the gift of affliction. Melvin Schoonover isn't trying to kid anyone, least of all his daughter. He knows first-hand the emotional and physical agony brought about by his handicap; confined to a wheelchair, he has experienced the limitations on his movements, the appalling insensitivity of which some of us are capable when exposed to a 'cripple' And he tells her about those experiences, and the effect they had on his childhood, his education, his travel, his career. He knows, better than most of us, how bad it can be. Yet he is able to write In many ways I consider myself to be among the most privileged of men . . . . And he adds: That is why I have decided to write you these letters . . . to share some things with you that the end of the struggle is not despair, but hope and joy. It is hope and joy that emerge most forcefully in these 'Letters to Polly' The bitterness is there, too, of course; and the anger , the impatience, the frustration. Schoonover is too honest to deny, or to attempt to disguise, the burdens of affliction. But neither his life nor his letters end on that note. They end, instead, in the joy and confidence he has found in Jesus of Nazareth. His final victory over evil and suffering and death, he tells Polly, gives me hope that we-and all men-can and shall reach the kingdom. There the physical burdens will be laid aside, and the walls of separation between human beings shall be torn down, and we shall all be free to love and live as we were always intended to do.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1597528927/?tag=2022091-20
Schoonover, Melvin Eugene was born on August 22, 1926 in Francesville, Indiana, United States. Son of Charles and Alma Louise (Garrigues) Schoonover.
AB, Wabash College, 1951. Master of Divinity, Union Theological Seminary, 1956. Master of Sacred Theology, Union Theological Seminary, 1969.
D. Ministry, New York Theological Seminary, 1971. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Wabash College, 1972. DDiv. (honorary), New York Theological Seminary, 1978.
Pastor, Chambers Memorial Baptist Church, New York City, 1958-1968; pastor, Center Baptist Church, Wayne, Pennsylvania, 1978-1983; dean degree programs, New York Theological Seminary, New York City, 1969-1978; director Florida extention, New York Theological Seminary, New York City, 1983-1985; president, S. Florida Center for Theological Studies, Miami, since 1985. Trustee New York Theological Seminary, 1978-1983.
(Making All Things Human' is a story of Christianity in ac...)
(In the five long letters which follow, her father-himself...)
(In the five long letters which follow, her father-himself...)
(Book by Schoonover, Melvin E)
Married Diana Russell Sturgis, May 24, 1957. 1 child, Diana Russell.