Charles Joy

From Philosopedia.org

Charles Rhind Joy (5 December 1885 - 1978)

Joy, who was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Robert Joy and Arabella Sophia Parke, received his A. B. in 1908 and his S. T. B. in 1911 (Andover Theological Seminary).

He married Lucy Alice Wanzer in 1911, and they had twins Alice Parke and Lucy Parke as well as a son, Robert, and a daughter, Nancy.

Autobiography

In the 25th anniversary record of the Harvard College Class of 1908, published in 1933, Joy wrote]:

I majored in English literature at Harvard College, and from the College entered the Divinity School. It was my ambition in those days to combine theology and literature in one career as Stopford A. Brooke had done in such a signal way. That ambition has never been realized, and never will be realized now. The ministry, I have found, is too exacting a profession in these modern days to look with favor upon such divided loyalties. For a few years I did serve as Literary Editor of The Christian Register, but this is the nearest approach I have ever made to the realization of the old ambition, which is now dismissed, I am sure, for good.

It was in 1908 that the Andover Theological Seminary came to Cambridge and I registered in both schools, as one could under the rules existing at the time. Simultaneously I pursued studies in both schools and received upon graduation S.T.B. degrees from both.

I was married in the Chapel of the Divinity School the day after Commencement to Lucy Alice Wanzer, Dean Fenn officiating. In the fall of that year I was settled in the First Parish of Portland, Maine, which had had none but Harvard men as its ministers from the time of its organization more than two hundred years before. Among them was Thomas Hill, predecessor of Charles W. Eliot as President of Harvard College. The First Parish was an important church, the largest and strongest of the Unitarian fellowships in Maine. It was only the unfortunately prolonged illness of the minister of the church that opened the doors of this parish to an inexperienced young chap like myself. But to Portland I went, first as the acting minister, and then as the settled pastor of the parish. There I was ordained in 1913.

My resignation from the Portland church was precipitated by the outbreak of the World War. I was opposed to the war. I shared Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's opinion that "it is the business of the church to make my business as a soldier impossible." My preaching became unacceptable. I resigned. I did not, however, desire to escape from the duties of that terrible period in our history. I sought service overseas with the Y.M.C.A. in order that I might help in some little way in assuaging the wounds of the great conflict.

I spent a year and a half overseas, six months with the French Army at the front. For this service I received later from the French War Office the Medaille Commemorative de la Grande Guerre, a strange decoration for a peace worker to possess, perhaps. From the French Army I was transferred to the 42nd American Division, the so-called Rainbow Division. With this Division I went through the Champagne-Marne Defensive and a part of the Chateau-Thierry Offensive. Then I was transferred to northern France. I became a Divisional Secretary with headquarters at Rouen; later Regional Director of all the Y.M.C.A. work in France north of Paris, and in Western Belgium, with headquarters at Le Havre.

Returning to America I resumed my work in the ministry, taking a little church in Pittsfield Mass., where I remained from December 1919 to January 1922. The first minister of this church had been William Wallace Fenn of the Divinity School.

In the early part of 1922 I was called to be minister of the First Church in Dedham, which had been established in 1638. There for five happy years I tried to serve the needs of that community. It was at this time that I began to be active in denominational affairs, for the headquarters of the Unitarian fellowship to which I belong was nearby in Boston. I became Literary Editor of The Christian Register, and Secretary of the Unitarian Ministerial Union.

In January 1927 I became minister of All Souls Church in Lowell, a union church which started as a federation of Unitarians and Congregationalists. Since the merger began, however, men and women of many diverse religious backgrounds have joined the church. In the beautiful building designed by Ralph Adams Cram I became interested in the effort to solve in a practical way the troublesome problem of church unity. My association with the denominational work continued. I became Secretary of the Committee on the Supply of Pulpits for the Unitarian Ministerial Union. The task of the Committee was to bring together churches seeking ministers and ministers seeking churches. This work led directly to a call from the American Unitarian Association to become an Administrative Vice President of that organization, through which the Unitarian churches of the United States and Canada function as a single group of free churches.

The last summer in Lowell I spent with my wife abroad on the only pleasure trip I have ever taken in Europe. We took our car with us for a memorable summer, the chief event of which was my climbing of the Matterhorn, a foolhardy exploit, of which I ought to be ashamed, but of which I am inordinately proud.

Since January 1930, I have been an officer of the American Unitarian Association. I have just been nominated for the next four years' term. My work is administrative, with much preaching and speaking. I have travelled all over the United States preaching, lecturing, and visiting churches. My interest in Church unity has increased during these recent years, and I am now enthusiastic over the new plan for the Free Church of America, under whose banner we are hoping to gather the liberals of the United States and Canada, whatever their name.

I have just heard that the Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry at Berkeley, Calif., has voted to confer upon me the honorary degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology in April of this year. So I am about to start west for a lengthy trip along the Pacific Coast with two preaching engagements at Stanford University, and other engagements in churches and colleges.

Here is the record to date. In the world's goods I am just as poor as ever, unless we count our wealth in terms of children. But it has been a full, happy, and eventful life.

The 50th Anniversary Class Book Reports

Charles Joy has received the following honors: S.T.D., Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry, 1933; Cruz Vermelha de Dedicacao, Cruz Vermelha de Merito, Cruz Vermelha de Benemerencia (all Portugal); Medaille Commemorative de la Grande Guerre, Palme Academique (both France); honorary life member, Portuguese Red Cross; Officer of the French Academy. His publications include: Topical Concordance of the Bible; One Great Prison; Police State Methods in the Soviet Union; Coercion of the Worker in the Soviet Union; Albert Schweitzer - An Anthology; The Africa of Albert Schweitzer; Wit and Wisdom of Albert Schweitzer; A Psychiatric Study of Jesus (translation); Goethe - Two Addresses; Goethe - Four Studies (translation); Animal World of Albert Schweitzer; Music in the World of Albert Schweitzer. Joy writes:

"My life since the happy Cambridge days in college and Divinity School seems to have fallen into three distinct periods. From 1911 to 1940 I was in the active ministry of the Unitarian Church, for seven years as administrative vice president of the American Unitarian Association From 1940 to 1954 I was engaged in international relief work. This work took me all over the world in such posts as executive director of the Unitarian Service Committee, European director and associate director of the Save the Children Federation, international representative, chief of the Korean Mission, and executive consultant for African affairs for C.A.R.E. In the course of these first two periods of my life I found time to write, translate, or edit a dozen books: Topical Concordance of the Bible, three books on labor and political conditions in the Soviet Union, and eight books on one of the truly great men of all time, Albert Schweitzer. The third period of my life began in 1954, since when I have been devoting my whole time to speaking and writing. Three more books of mine, People of the African Equator, Africa—A Handbook for Travelers, and a Tolstoy Anthology, will be published in the spring of 1959, and I am committed to the writing of eight or ten more during the next few years.

"I have served overseas in Europe and Korea during the three wars that have punctuated my life story, but I have found all the years to be a rather exciting pilgrimage and never more so than now. I have wandered about the world in more than a hundred different countries and everywhere I have found friendly people with whom it has been good to associate. I am now trying to make these many peoples better known in America and to promote in some small way a world understanding on which alone enduring peace may be built. Traveling, speaking, writing, these are the three foci around which my life now turns. I could not ask for any activities more interesting, more rewarding. I am not much concerned with the past, though I know the future has its roots there. I am eager to see the burgeoning and the fruitage of the years that are to be."