religious and social meeting centre of Pendle Hill
Henry Hodgkin became a member of what organization or association in 1929?
Henry Hodgkin Henry Hodgkin ( 1877-1933 ) was a medical doctor and a British Quaker missionary who , in the course of his 55-year life , co-founded the West China Union University in Chengdu , co-founded and led the first Christian pacifist movement , the International Fellowship of Reconciliation , and founded the Pendle Hill Quaker meeting and training center , in Wallingford , Pennsylvania . Life . Early years . Henry Theodore Hodgkin was born on 21 April 1877 in a very affluent Quaker family of Darlington in County Durham , North East England . He was the son of Jonathan Backhouse Hodgkin ( 1843-1926 ) , banker and mayor of Darlington , and of Mary Anna Pease , both from Quaker families . The Hodgkins lived in the majestic Victorian manor of Elm Ridge in Darlington . After Leighton Park School he studied first in Kings College , Cambridge , then in St Thomas Hospital , London , to become a medical doctor ( M.B . B.Ch ( Cantab ) ) . Extremely tall , with exceptional charisma and personality , he became President of the English Student Missionary Union from 1902 to 1905 . This organizations aim was to recruit missionaries among British students . Missionary work in China . After completing his studies in 1905 , Henry Hodgkin left immediately for Chengdu , in the Sichuan province , China , as a missionary The Friends Foreign Missionary Association , a Quaker organisation which later became The Friends Service Council ; he stayed in China until 1909 . During his stay in Chnegdu , he helped set up the West China Union University , a Protestant university sponsored by several Protestant churches until its closure in 1926 ; after 1926 the Chinese professors took over from the foreign professors , and perpetuated their work so well that this university has now been incorporated into Chengdus various universities . From 1910 to 1920 , Henry Hodgkin returned to England , to be the Secretary of The Friends Foreign Missionary Association . He departed again for China in 1921 , initially to deliver a series of lectures . He received however as a result a pressing invitation to become one of the secretaries of the National Christian Council of China ; he held this position from 1922 to 1929 . Launching of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation . During his decade in Britain from 1910 to 1920 , Hodgkin became active on the pacifist scene . In the summer of 1914 , he had joined a group of about 150 European Christians who were convinced that a major conflagration was coming soon in Europe and who had gathered in Constance , in southern Germany , to envisage possible actions to avert an actual war . This conference was far from successful since it was interrupted by the actual declaration of war ! While conference participants were hurriedly returning home by train , Henry Hodgkin and the German Lutheran pastor Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze made a mutual commitment before parting in Cologne that while their countries might be at war with each other , We are one in Christ and can never be at war . This commitment implied of course to abstain from any direct personal participation in the conflict , in line with the traditional pacifist Quaker position , but also to work relentlessly to reestablish peace between their two nations no matter the policies of their governments . Hodgkin kept his word immediately and initiated a first meeting at Queens College , Cambridge , where he lectured in philosophy : an ecumenical group of about 20 people came together to reflect on the implications of war on their personal and community life . They wrote a common declaration stating they could conceive God as a nationalist and couldnt accept the idea of a moratorium on the Sermon on the Mount on hold for the duration of the war . The first chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation ( FOR ) was born . Another meeting gathered 128 people at Trinity College , Cambridge , where Henry Hodgkin was elected president of the FOR . In 1915 Hodgkin travelled to New York City with a group of 66 people and convened a meeting at Union Theological Seminary that included some very influential theologians and ministers the day , including Reinhold Niebuhr ( who would become critical of Christian pacifism in the ’30s and consequently break with the FOR ) . Among those present that day were Edward Evans , Norman Thomas , socialist educator Jessie Wallace Hughan ( who would later found the more secular War Resisters League ) , Episcopalian bishop Paul Jones ( who would be forced to resign his Utah see in April 1918 because of his outspoken opposition to World War I ) , Grace Hutchins et John Haynes Holmes . The American chapter of the now International Fellowship of Reconciliation was then founded . Work in the United States . In 1929 Henry Hodgkin was called to launch the Quaker religious and social meeting centre of Pendle Hill near Philadelphia ( Pendle Hill being the name of the Lancashire hill where George Fox , the inspirator of Quakerism , had his founding vision ) . Historian Douglas Gwyn has shown Henry Hodgkin’s determining role , contributing his spiritual depth and his social concern to the drafting of the meeting centre’s vision : Pendle Hill’s early vision was to be a vital center of spiritual culture and as a place for training leaders . In 1929 , Henry Hodgkin gathered a dozen leaders to discern the direction for this new center and four key focus areas were chosen as a result : - House of Rest , a place of peace and deep quiet ; - School of the Prophets , a place to be grounded in a few well-chosen areas rather than teaching on many interesting topics ; - Laboratory of Ideas , a place to test beliefs in practice ; and - Fellowship ’Round Christ among students and staff . He had to leave this position in 1932 for health reasons . Books . Henry Hodgkin wrote several books , among which : - The Message and Mission of Quakerism ( 1912 ) ( with William Charles Braithwaite ( 1862 – 1922 ) ) - Friends beyond the Seas ( 1916 ) - Lay religion ( New York , 1919 ) - The Missionary Spirit - Swarthmore Lecture for 1916 - The Christian Revolution ( 1923 ) - Living Issues in China ( 1932 ) Philosophy . Hodgkins philosophy was rooted in his Quaker faith , which brought along a deep adhesion to pacifism and in a high social sensitivity . His views evolved from a strict English Quaker missionary’s view to a more multicultural approach . One of his biographers wrote that he was a man large of body and mind . He summarised his own evolution as follows : By processes too numerous and diverse even to summarize , I have reached a position which may be stated in a general way somewhat like this : I believe that Gods best for another may be so different from my experience and way of living as to be actually impossible for me . I recognize a change to have taken place in myself , from a certain assumption that mine was really the better way , to a very complete recognition that there is no one better way and that God needs all kinds of people and ways of living through which to manifest Himself in the World . This has seemed to carry with it two conclusions which greatly affect conduct . One is that I really find myself wanting to learn from people whom I previously would have regarded as fit objects for my missionary zeal . To discover another way in which God is operating - along lines it may be distasteful or dangerous to me - is a large part of the fun of living . The second direction in which conduct is influenced is the deliberate attempt to share the life and interests of others who are not in my circle .. . [ for ] in such sharing I can most deeply understand the others life and through that reach , maybe , fresh truths about God . Family . Henry Hodgkin married Elizabeth Joy Montgomery . They had three children . He died on 26 March 1933 in Dublin a few weeks after undergoing surgery . His family counted a variety of personalities who deeply influenced the region of Darlington : - As a banker , his father had financed a fair share of the regions industrial development . - His father-in-law , John Pease was the oldest son of railway pioneer Edward Pease , and another affluent Quaker industrialist who had the Elm Ridge manor built . - His brother Jonathan Edward Hodgkin ( 1875-1953 ) was a devoted humanitarian during World War I , heading the local branch of The Friends War Victims Relief Committee - FWVRC . From 1916 on he served in Durham as a Quaker chaplain to the imprisoned conscientious objectors and organised transport for wounded in Darlington district . He also became treasurer of the London Peace Society . - His sister Mary Hodgkin ( 1882-1956 ) was the secretary of Darlington Town Mission for many years . She raised the needed money to build the Chapel at the Darlington Memorial Hospital for the use of the patients . References . Bibliography . - Gijsbert Gerrit Jacob den Boggende , The Fellowship of Reconciliation 1914-1945 , A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy , McMaster University , Hamilton , Ontario , 1986 - Dave D’Albert , A Lexicon of Spiritual Leaders In the IFOR Peace Movement , Part 1 , Version 3 , 2010 - Douglas Gwyn , Personality and Place : The Life and Times of Pendle Hill ( Anglais ) Broché – 22 December 2014 , - Obituary published by the British Medical Journal , 1 April 1933