Robert Elliott Speer (10 September 1867 – 23 November 1947) was an American Presbyterian religious leader and an authority on missions.

Biography

He was born at

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania Huntingdon is a borough in (and the county seat of) Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located along the Juniata River, approximately east of Altoona, Pennsylvania, Altoona and west of Harris ...

on 10 September 1867. He graduated from

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

in 1886 and from

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

in 1889, and studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1890–91. He became active as an itinerant recruiter for the

Student Volunteer Movement The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was an organization founded in 1886 that sought to recruit college and university students in the United States for missionary service abroad. It also sought to publicize and encourage the mission ...

(SVM) from 1889 to 1890. In 1891, he was appointed secretary of the

American Presbyterian Mission Presbyterian Mission Agency is the ministry and mission agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Founded as the Western Foreign Missionary Society by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1837, it was involved in sending w ...

. He visited missions in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, India, China, Korea, and Japan in 1896–97, and in South America in 1909 and later made similar tours. In Princeton he was greatly influenced by

Arthur Tappan Pierson Arthur Tappan Pierson (March 6, 1837 – June 3, 1911) was an American Presbyterian pastor, Christian leader, missionary and writer who preached over 13,000 sermons, wrote over fifty books, and gave Bible lectures as part of a transatlantic p ...

. Under his leadership, the foreign missions of the Presbyterian church became remarkably successful. Speer retired in 1937. He married Emma Doll Bailey in 1893 and, together, they had five children, one of whom, Elliot Speer (1898 – 1934), became headmaster of Northfield Mount Hermon School, where he was murdered in his home on campus, on 14 September 1934. Their daughter Margaret Bailey Speer (1900–1997) was dean of Yenching Women's College in China in the 1930s, and headmistress of the Shipley School from 1944 to 1965. He died on 3 November 1947, in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.

Theology

Although he published two articles in '' The Fundamentals'', some have called him liberal because he sided with the

Presbyterian Church (USA) The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and ...

and opposed

John Gresham Machen John Gresham Machen (; 1881–1937) was an American Presbyterian New Testament scholar and educator in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1906 and 1929, and led a revolt against modernist ...

during the anti-liberal/modernist controversies of the 1930s. Speer affirmed traditional Christian doctrines such as the historical accuracy of the Bible, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection of Christ, yet also embraced a social vision of Christianity placed him closer to theological liberals than some conservatives would tolerate. He is quoted to have said that

Karl Barth Karl Barth (; ; – ) was a Swiss Calvinist theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary '' The Epistle to the Romans'', his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship (except for a single phrase) of the Barmen Declara ...

offered "an essential recovery of aspects of truth which will not so easily be lost again."

Influence

Speer wrote numerous sermons, articles, pamphlets, and books among which are biographies, biblical commentaries and books on Christian living. Most deal with missionary principles and practices but some tackle controversial social problems. He coined the famous four principles of Jesus which became embedded in Moral Rearmament and in Alcoholics Anonymous as the "Four Absolutes" or the "Four Standards". Basing his views on his own biblical research, Speer regarded these four principles as one of Jesus' key teachings: Purity, Honesty, Unselfishness and Love. While the initiator of Moral Rearmament, Dr Frank Buchman, held Robert E. Speer in high regard, he used a version of the four principles which had been reworked by Pr

Henry Burt Wright Henry Burt Wright (1877–1923) was an American professor from Yale University whose writings influenced, among others, Frank Buchman, and subsequently the work he developed under the name of Oxford Group, later Moral Rearmament. Biography Henr ...

from

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Publications

*
The Man Christ Jesus
' (1896) *
The Deity of Christ
' * ''A Memorial of a True Life: Biography of H. M. Beaver'' (1898) *
The Man Paul
' (1900) * ''Presbyterian Foreign Missions'' (1901) *
Missionary Principles and Practice
' (1902) *
The Principles of Jesus: applied to some questions of today
' (1902) * ''A Memorial of

Horace Tracy Pitkin Horace Tracy Pitkin (1869–1900) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who was killed in China during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. Yale China Mission, (now the Yale-China Association), was founded in his memo ...

'' (1903) *
A Young Man's Questions
' (1903) * ''Missions and Modern History'' (two volumes, 1904
vol. 1
vol. 2 *
The Marks of a Man
' (1907) *
Christ and Life
' *
Christianity and the Nations
' (1910) *
The Light of the World
' (1911) *
South American Problems
' (1912) *
Studies of Missionary Leadership
' (1914) * ''John's Gospel'' (1915) * ''The Stuff of Manhood'' (1917) *
Young Men Who Overcame
' *
The Christian Man the Church and the War
' (1918) *
The Gospel and the New World
' (1919) *
Seeking the Mind of Christ
' * ''A Missionary Pioneer in the Far East'' (1922) *
Of One Blood
' (1924) *
Seeking the Mind of Christ
' (1926) * ''The Unity of the Americas'' (1926) * ''Some Living Issues'' (1930) * ''The Finality of Jesus Christ'' (1933) * ''Five Minutes a Day'' (1943) * ''George Bowen of Bombay'' (1938) *
Men Who Were Found Faithful
' (1912) *
The Master of the Heart
'

Notes

References