Douglas V. Steere

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

Douglas V. Steere (right) with the Finnish sociologist Heikki Waris in the 1950s.

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
  • God's irregular: Arthur Shearly Cripps: a Rhodesian epic, 1973
  • Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings, ed. with Elizabeth Gray Vining, 1983

References
  1. Douglas Steere biography from Pascal
  2. Merton's Correspondence with: Douglas Van Steere
  3. New York Times obituary

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
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