Background
Robert Cummins was born in 1897 in Sidney, Ohio.
Robert Cummins was born in 1897 in Sidney, Ohio.
Robert Cummins attended Miami University where he received a Bachelor of Arts. Also, he earned a Master of Arts from the University of Cincinnati and a Master of Theology from the University of California.
After graduation from Miami University, сalled "the modern architect of organized Universalism," Robert Cummins took charge of the Boon-It Institute in Bangkok, a Presbyterian mission. After only two years of teaching, he helped engineer the transfer of responsibility for the school to local leadership. Upon returning to Ohio, Cummins became the minister of three small congregations while also owning and operating his own insurance business in the early 1920s. He soon, in 1926, accepted a call from the Universalist Church in Cincinnati, where he served for six years. In 1932 Cummins became the minister of Throop Memorial Universalist Church in Pasadena in California.
Robert Cummins's successes in the parish led the Trustees of the Universalist General Convention to prevail upon him in 1938 to become the fifth general superintendent of the Universalist Church of America. Cummins was told that "we should try to check a decline which had been going on for fifty years." He tried mightily to build Universalist confidence, and he succeeded by introducing a departmental system and vastly increasing income and budget. However, his fifteen years of leadership could not restore Universalism to corporate health, even though he traveled all over the United States and Canada trying to bring regional groups into greater cooperation with a more centralized headquarters. Cummins also led the denomination's failed effort to join the Federal Council of Churches. The end of his tenure saw him supporting the establishment of the Council of Liberal Churches, which was the first step towards the final union of Unitarians and Universalists. After his retirement, Robert Cummins served the Eisenhower administration by heading up the State Department's International Cooperation Administration.
Additionally, Robert Cummins was a writer. His works included two books, Parish Practices in Universalist Churches and Excluded.
Robert Cummins was best known as an educator, writer, and clergyman. He was the head of the Boon-It Institute in Bangkok. As a clergyman, Cummins became the fifth general superintendent of the Universalist Church of America in 1938. Being in that position, he built Universalist confidence by introducing a departmental system and vastly increasing income and budget. As a writer, Robert Cummins was the author of two writings, Parish Practices in Universalist Churches and Excluded.
When Robert Cummins became a Universalist, he said that it was "big enough to allow me the freedom of conscience and intellect I seemed by nature to demand." In 1943 he articulated the more inclusive basis of Universalist thinking when he addressed the General Assembly with these words: "Universalism cannot be limited to Protestantism or Christianity, not without denying its very name. Ours is a world fellowship, not just a Christian sect." He also believed that "for so long as Universalism is universalism and not partialism, the fellowship bearing its name must succeed in making it unmistakably clear that all are welcome: theist and humanist, Unitarian and Trinitarian, colored and colorless. A circumscribed Universalism is unthinkable."
Robert Cummins was married to Alice Grimes, and they had three children.
