Universalist Church of America

Robert Cummins ( 1897-1982 ) was born in Sidney, Ohio . He received a BA from Miami University in 1919, an MA from the University of Cincinnati in 1921, and a ThM from the University of Southern California in 1937 . He was ordained a Universalist minister in 1926 . Cummins began his career as a teacher at the Boon-It Institute in Bangkok, Thailand . He returned to the United States in the early 1920s and served pastorates in Milford, Newton, and Montgomery, Ohio, before settling in Cincinnati in 1926 . He moved to Pasadena, California, in 1932 to become pastor of Throop Memorial Universalist Church . From 1938 to 1954, he served as the general superintendent of the Universalist Church of America . Cummins retired from active ministry in 1953 and was called upon by President Eisenhower to head the U.S. State Department's International Cooperation Administration . From 1960 to 1961 he served as president of the Universalist Church of Maine . He is also the author of Religious Implications of the Democratic Process ( 1940 ), Parish Practice in Universalist Churches: Manual of Organization and Administration ( 1946 ), The Universalist Church of America ( 1953 ) and Excluded: The Story of the Council of Churches and the Universalists ( 1964 ).

From the guide to the Universalist Church of America. General Superintendent, Cummins, Robert, 1897-1982. Records, 1939-1969., (Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School)