Douglas V. Steere Explained

Douglas Van Steere (August 31, 1901 – February 6, 1995) was an American Quaker ecumenist.

Biography

He served as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College from 1928 to 1964 and visiting professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1962. Steere organized Quaker post-war relief work in Finland, Norway and Poland, was invited to participate as an ecumenical observer in the Second Vatican Council and co-founded the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality. He authored, edited, translated and wrote introductions for many books on Quakerism, as well as other religions and philosophy.^[1]

Steere was an undergraduate at Michigan State University, received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1931, and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, receiving degrees from Oxford in 1927 and 1954. He corresponded often with Thomas Merton, a popular Trappist monk.^[2]

In 1987, he was awarded the Decoration of Knight 1st Class of the White Rose of Finland, in recognition of his post-war relief work in that country.^[3]

Bibliography

• Prayer and worship, 1938
• On beginning from within, 1943
• Doors into life, 1948
• Purity of Heart, by Søren Kierkegaard, transl., 1938, 1948
• Time to spare, 1949
• On listening to another, 1955
• Work and contemplation, 1957
• Dimensions of prayer, 1962
• Spiritual Counsel and Letters of Baron Friedrich von Hugel, Edited with an Introduction, 1964
• God's irregular: Arthur Shearly Cripps: a Rhodesian epic 1973
• Together in Solitude, 1982
• Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings, ed., preface by Elizabeth Gray Vining, 1983

References

1. http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_HAVERFORD_USPHCHCColl1174 Douglas Steere biography from Pascal
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20171011192129/http://merton.org/Research/Correspondence/y1.aspx?id=1913 Merton's Correspondence with: Douglas Van Steere
3. News: Douglas Steere, 93, Author, Professor And Quaker Leader (Published 1995) . The New York Times . 16 February 1995 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180729111912/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/16/obituaries/douglas-steere-93-author-professor-and-quaker-leader.html . 2018-07-29 . live . Elliott . J. Michael .

Further reading

• "The Open Life" – William Penn Lecture 1937 by Douglas V. Steere
• Love at the Heart of Things: a biography of Douglas V. Steere, by E. Glenn Hinson. 1998