Paul Hutchinson

Background

Hutchinson was born in Madison, N. J. in 1890, the son of the Reverend Charles Xerxes Hutchinson and Annie Mixsell Petrie.

Education

He received his secondary education at Centenary Collegiate Institute at Hackettstown, N. J. , and the Ph. B. at Lafayette College, from which he was graduated in 1911. Having decided to follow his father in the ministry, he entered Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, Ill.

Career

Although Hutchinson relished the grass-roots ministry of a Congregational pastorate in rural Iowa, he believed that the aspect of church work meant for him was religious journalism. He therefore accepted the post of assistant editor of the Epworth Herald, the publication of the Epworth League of the Methodist Episcopal Church. After helping to enliven the Epworth Herald for two years (1914 - 1916), Hutchinson became editor of the China Christian Advocate, published in Shanghai. For the next five years (1916 - 1921) the Far East was his parish. Besides carrying out his editorial duties he traveled in China and nearby countries. He organized and developed the Epworth League in China and served as its secretary. Hutchinson was also chairman of the China Christian Literature Council. In his fifth year in the Orient he was executive secretary of the China Centenary Movement of the Methodist Church.

Hutchinson contracted amoebic dysentery and returned home in 1921. He expected to go back to China, but the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions prevailed on him to remain in the United States. From 1922 to 1924 he worked in the publicity department of the Methodist Church headquarters in Chicago. In the latter year he submitted a manuscript to Christian Century, and was hired as managing editor of the nondenominational weekly. In the absences of the editor and founder, Charles Clayton Morrison, editorial responsibilities rested on Hutchinson. When Morrison retired in 1947, Hutchinson became editor.

Along with his editorial duties, which included the recruiting of clergymen of diverse faiths as correspondents and commentators, Hutchinson was seldom without a major research or writing project of his own. Out of his experience in the Orient came Guide to the Mission Stations in Eastern China (1919), The Next Step (1921), The Spread of Christianity (1922), China's Real Revolution (1924), and What and Why in China (1927). He was a major writer and editorial assistant in the production of The World Service of the Methodist Church (1923). With Halford E. Luccock he brought out The Story of Methodism (1926). His other books included World Revolution and Religion (1931), Storm Over Asia (1932), The Ordeal of Western Religion (1933), From Victory to Peace (1943), and The New Leviathan (1946). In Men Who Made the Churches (1930) he summarized the contributions of the founders of Protestantism. His nondenominational treatment of religion made him a leader in the ecumenical movement. To assess the effects of World War II, in 1946 Life commissioned Hutchinson to make a global tour to report on the state of Christianity. The first article, "Does Europe Face a Holy War?" , appeared in Life on September 23, 1946. To write spot reports for the Christian Century, he went around the world by way of India and China. His findings led to his summary conclusion that Christianity was the main force to oppose Communism.

Hutchinson preached from time to time, and the announcement of his name as the preacher assured a full church. Chiefly because of his health, he retired from the editorship of Christian Century in January 1956. After a winter sojourn in Florida and delivering a series of lectures in New Orleans, he became ill on a drive west and died in Beaumont, Tex.

Achievements

• Paul Hutchinson has been listed as a notable editor, author by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Spread of Christianity (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Spread of Christianity OF the making of...)

  • A Partisan History Of Judaism

    (Book by Berger, Elmer)

  • The Story of Methodism
  • The Soccer Skills Poster Book

Religion

An early testimonial characterized his views. The church, he said, "has had its hours of conformity, of regularity, of walking in well-marked roads. But these have not been the high hours. Whenever the moment comes when the church is ready to break the trammels of convention, to forsake the trodden paths, to mount again some new circuit through some new wilderness, or along some new border, then it comes aflame once more. " This outlook led him to seek out and encourage the application of Christian principles to the social and economic scene.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Calling Hutchinson a "born journalist, " Morrison wrote in the Christian Century: "There was a mild but wholesome skepticism in his mentality that made him look below the surface for hidden motivations. His perceptive mind was quick to detect both unconscious and deliberate intentions behind unctuous phrases. He hated cant. His composition was an evidence of a tidy and honest mind. His manuscript came from the typewriter so clean that he rarely needed to change a single word. It was an exact mirror of his mind. "

Connections

Upon graduation he married Agnes Mitchell on June 24, 1915; they had four children.

Father:

Reverend Charles Xerxes Hutchinson

Mother:

Annie Mixsell Petrie

Spouse:

Agnes Mitchell