Beaver, R. Pierce (Robert Pierce), 1906-

Born May 26, 1906. Received B.A. and M.A. from Oberlin College. Ordained as a minister, 1932. Received Ph.D. in History from Cornell, 1933. Missionary work in China. Taught at the Central China Union Theological Seminary, Lancaster Theological Seminary, and the University of Chicago. Served as Directory of Missionary Research Library. Died November 20, 1987.

From the description of Papers, 1905-1962 (inclusive), 1948-1962 (bulk). (University of Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 222169849

Born May 26, 1906. Received B.A. and M.A. from Oberlin College. Ordained as a minister, 1932. Received Ph. D. in History from Cornell, 1933. Missionary work in China. Taught at the Central China Union Theological Seminary, Lancaster Theological Seminary, and the University of Chicago. Served as Directory of Missionary Research Library. Died November 20, 1987.

From the description of Beaver, R. Pierce. papers. (University of Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 46406406

Robert Pierce Beaver was born on May 26, 1906 to Caroline Neutsch and Joseph Earl Beaver of Hamilton, Ohio. His father worked for the state Game and Fish Commission. After finishing high school in Hamilton in 1924, he went to Oberlin College, where he received a bachelor’s degree and, in 1928, a master’s degree in art. During his time there, he became engaged and was married to his high school girlfriend Wilma Manessier. After studying for two years (1931-1932) in Munich, he was ordained as a minister in what is now the United Church of Christ and went on to get a Ph.D. in history from Cornell in 1933.

Following his graduation, Beaver served pastorates in Ohio and Maryland, during which time he wrote his first book, The House of God (1935). In 1938, after five years of pastoring, his church selected him to be a missionary to China. In preparation for his service there, he studied language for a year at the College of Chinese Studies in Peking. When he was finished, he became a professor of church history and worship at the Central China Union Theological Seminary, where he taught for two years. Because of an illness, though, he was sent to Hong Kong in 1942, where he was interned by the Japanese for seven months. Upon his release, he returned to the United States to rejoin his family.

In the United States, Beaver quickly resumed speaking at churches and conferences and also resumed his post-doctoral studies. He then became a professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania for four years, where he taught missions and ecumenics. In 1948, he left Pennsylvania to accept a job as director of the Missionary Research Library in New York. While serving as the director of the MRL, he spent his spare time lecturing at various area seminaries, including the Union Theological Seminary. Encouraging the furtherance of reading and education among missionaries was a central concern of Beaver’s.

As appreciated as his efforts were, Beaver left the MRL in 1955 and accepted a full professorship in missions at the University of Chicago, where his passion for scholarship and full-time teaching could be more fully employed. The offer was made on the strength of his scholarly contributions and missionary experience. While at the MRL, he had published articles about the relation of missions to a wide range of different themes, from single women missionaries to theological education. He had also shown a far-reaching appreciation of the complex relation between missions and local culture, writing on topics as diverse as the rise of monasticism in Africa and the possibility of a Buddhist revival. One can find a statement of his position on the missionary’s role within his adopted culture in a later essay, The Churches and the Indians: Consequences of 350 Years of Missions. There, he says that contemporary mission theory should stress “the indigenization of the faith in any culture, an awareness by missionaries of cultural and religious values, and the closest partnership of national leaders and missionaries in the acculturation process. Culture and faith interact and produce something new.”

The dean of the Divinity School, Jerald Brauer, described the impact Beaver had on the teaching of missions in Chicago as a revolution. He said, “[Beaver] interjected into the life of the community a whole new worldwide outlook which, though not totally absent in the past, had no focus either in terms of person or of the curriculum through which its full effects might be known” (quoted in Kang, A Tribute to a Teacher, 1971). While Beaver was at Chicago, he would also work with figures as notable in religious studies as Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitigawa. Under this constellation of thinkers, the University of Chicago would become an international center for missions study and research.

While he was at Chicago, he did some of his most remembered writing. Among the titles published during his tenure at Chicago was Ecumenical Beginnings in Protestant World History: A History of Comity (1962), in which he put his academic abilities as a historian in the service of his vision of a non-sectarian church. He also wrote Church, State, and the American Indians (1966), in which he told the “glorious and often terrible” story of the history of the relationship between the Christian world and the native Americans, a story where “Every promising beginning was brought to a sad end by the injustice of white citizens to their red brethren.” And, finally, he wrote All Loves Excelling: American Protestant Women in World Mission (1968), in which he deals with what he later called the “first feminist movement in North America,” the surge of women missionaries that occurred after the Civil War, and where he despairs that the modern lack of female missionaries leads to a corresponding lack of typically feminine spiritual gifts on the missions field, “the power of the heart as well as the intellect, the important feminine intuition, her impatience with bureaucratic procrastination and endless discussion before action.”

In 1972 Beaver retired from teaching, entering the private life. But he quickly came out of retirement in 1973 to serve as director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. He continued in this capacity until 1975, when illness prevented him from continuing. Afterwards, he also served as Board of Publications Chairperson for the American Society of Missiology (1979-1982).

Robert Pierce Beaver died on November 20, 1987 in Tucson, Arizona. He was 81.

From the guide to the Beaver, R. Pierce. Papers, 1905-1962, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)