Buttrick Will Retire As University Preacher

The Rev. George A. Buttrick will retire in June as Preacher to the University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals. He will devote his time to freelance preaching and writing, and has also been designated as the first American to serve as Harry Emerson Fosdick Visiting Professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Announcing Buttrick's retirement, President Pusey commended his "bold and kindly ministry,' "his wisdom and scholarship in the fields of religion, religious philosophy, homiletics, and parish work," and his "many imaginative contributions to the activity of the Memorial Church."

In the fall of 1954, when Buttrick's appointment was announced, the post of University preacher had been vacant for one and a half years. Despite speculation during the previous spring that the new head of memorial Church would have no teaching duties, Buttrick also became an active professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Shortly before Buttrick came to Cambridge, President Pusey asked a number of distinguished guest preachers for the Spring term to cancel their Sunday visits to memorial Church, so that Buttrick (called by Life magazine one of the nation's "ten greatest preachers") could deliver most of the sermons, and give the Services "Continuity."

Buttrick's duties were further increased several months later, when he was named Faculty chairman of Phillips Brooks House. During the past five years attendance and "Parish activities" at Memorial Church have shown a marked increase.

Buttrick, now 67, will serve as Fosdick Professor during the Fall of 1960-61, and will lecture at universities and seminaries in the spring. He is general editor of a four-volume Bible dictionary and of the 12-volume Interpreters' Bible.

From his teaching experience in Humanities 124-5, Buttrick hopes also to assemble a textbook on the New Testament and "Biblical Thinking and the Mind of Today."