Theological Discussion Group.

The Theological Discussion Group, meeting twice yearly in weekend retreat initially at Yale University, included Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Henry Van Dusen, James Luther Adams, Georgia Harkness and many other leading Christian thinkers. Papers were presented and critiqued, and issues concerning the evolution of Christianity and the modern world discussed.

The majority of the approximately 200 papers included in this record group were written in connection with a Theological Discussion Group which began in 1934 and continued into the early 1960s. Many of the most prominent American theologians of this time period participated in the Group,meeting twice yearly, first at the Yale Divinity School and later in Washington, D.C. The stated intent of the Group as it formed in 1934 was "to hold a series of two week-end 'retreat discussions' during the coming academic year in some relatively secluded place where we could engage in a full, frank and leisurely exchange of ideas...The aim of the discussion will be to discover what is essential and distinctive in the Christian gospel for today." (Box 5, Folder 48)