Blakemore, Wm. Barnett (William Barnett), 1912-1975

William Barnett Blakemore, Jr. was born on July 22, 1912 in Perth, Australia to American parents. When Blakemore was six years old the family moved from Perth to Melbourne where his father served as minister of a large Melbourne church. In 1925 his parents' decision to reestablish American roots relocated the Blakemores to St. Louis, Missouri.

Blakemore earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering at Washington University in 1933. A two year stint pursuing a career in science with a major St. Louis chemical firm followed. However, his aptitude for the ministry was soon recognized by St. Louis mentors who counseled him to consider refocusing his career. The Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago awarded Blakemore a scholarship in 1935 and he moved to Chicago and enrolled in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago to begin academic preparation for the ministry.

The University of Chicago awarded Blakemore a Master of Arts degree in 1937 and a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1938. Blakemore's thesis for his divinity degree - The Definition, in Recent Psychology of Religion, of the Structure and Function of Faith - was awarded the University's Susan Colver Rosenberger Prize for Meritorious Research. Immediately following completion of the B.D. degree in 1938, Disciples Divinity House awarded him a Traveling Fellowship, providing a year of travel and study in Europe. Blakemore recorded this year-long experience in a journal, found in Series I, Subseries 4. The journal records his limited enrollment at Overdale College in Birmingham, England. Immediately following this period of study he traveled from Scotland through England, France, Germany and Italy to Yugoslavia and reported an uneasy continent preparing for war. He left Europe in May 1939 and returned to the University to complete his Ph.D. degree, graduating in 1941.

Following ordination in 1941, the University appointed Blakemore Assistant Professor of Practical Theology in the Divinity School. Progressively he was named Associate Professor in 1944 and Professor of Ecumenical Christianity in 1971.

William Barnett Blakemore and Josephine Gilstrap were married in 1942. They had two children - a son, William (1944), and daughter, Jory (1946).

He was named Disciples Divinity House Assistant Dean in 1944 and Acting Dean in 1945. Later that year, Blakemore succeeded Edward Scribner Ames as Dean of the Disciples Divinity House, a post which he held until his death. The Disciples Divinity House was, throughout his professional life, the focus of Blakemore's career. He routinely directed that his identification as "Dean of Disciples Divinity House" take precedence over any other title which might be assigned to him.

Plans were completed for federating four theological institutions clustered in Hyde Park immediately prior to the retirement of Dean Ames. Concurrent with the beginning of Blakemore's tenure at the Disciples Divinity House, the Federated Theological Faculty of the University of Chicago (FTF) was inaugurated at the University in 1944. The Disciples Divinity House became one of four administratively equal partners, and with the University's Divinity School, Meadville Theological School, and the Chicago Theological Seminary shared a single faculty. Administration of this newly established faculty rested with a cabinet composed of the heads of the four institutions. The end of the FTF in 1960 restored the Disciples Divinity House to its original singular stance as a denominational house of studies-- the sole faculty of which was then, as it has continued to remain, that of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

Blakemore's full pastoral and administrative responsibilities for the interim Deanship of the University's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 1959 to 1965, occurred concurrently with the years of his Disciples Divinity House Deanship. For a period prior to 1959 Blakemore had served in a stand-by role as Rockefeller Chapel Associate Dean. He retained the title Associate Dean throughout his interim service at the Chapel. During this time, the University's public presence was represented by a weekly radio program, Faith of Our Fathers, broadcast on Sunday mornings by Chicago's WGN radio station. Each week the University's Department of Radio and Television recorded audio tapes of Rockefeller Chapel Sunday worship services for WGN's regular broadcast on the following Sunday. Examples of these recordings are found in Series IV.

Additional briefer interim pastorates occurred, including periods for Chicago Heights Christian Church (1942-1943), Normal Park Baptist Church (1950-1953), and First Christian Church Downers Grove (1972-1973). Widely known for his abilities as a public speaker, Blakemore frequently lectured and preached for local, state, and national churches, ministerial associations, lay schools of theology, state conventions of the Disciples of Christ, and at colleges and universities throughout the United States.

Blakemore's major contributions to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) include his service on the denomination's Panel of Scholars from 1956 to 1970 (chairmanship from 1958), and his editorship of the three-volume publication of the Panel's reports, The Renewal of the Church. The Panel consisted of seventeen scholars charged with reassessing the history and fundamental teachings of the Disciples of Christ. During the Disciple's period of restructure from 1946 to 1974, Blakemore was actively involved in the process of reevaluating and reorganizing some of the denomination's basic procedures. His participation included Chairmanship of the Commission on Basic Documents. In 1974, he was elected President of the World Convention of the Churches of Christ.

Blakemore was a notable leader in the ecumenical movement. He participated in assemblies and committees of the World Council of Churches, the National and World Conferences on Faith and Order, and the Conference of Secretaries of World Confessional Families. From 1964 to 1965, Blakemore was a Protestant delegate observer to the third and fourth sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome. He was also active in the Church Federation of Greater Chicago, serving as its president from 1967 to 1968.

From 1956 until his death in 1975, Blakemore served on The American Youth Foundation's Board of Trustees based in St. Louis. During those years he chaired the Foundation's Education Committee. From 1934 until 1975 he regularly provided leadership to the Foundation's seasonal camp conferences in Miniwanca, Michigan.

He was the author of six books, including The Cornerstone and the Builders (1956), Encountering God (1965), and Quest for Intelligence in Ministry (1970). Additionally, he served as editor and contributed to periodicals such as The Scroll, Disciples of Illinois, Disciples of Christ in Chicago, The Challenge of Christian Unity, The Christian Evangelist, and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

William Barnett Blakemore died in Dallas, Texas on May 2, 1975 while attending meetings of the World Convention of Disciples of Christ and the Association for Theological Discussion.

From the guide to the Blakemore, William Barnett. Papers, 1930-2006, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)