Shailer Mathews

1863-1941. American theologian. Born in Portland, Maine, he graduated from Colby College and afterward served on the faculty there (1887-94). He then joined the theological faculty at the University of Chicago, first teaching NT, then theology until 1933. He was the leading voice of the “Chicago School of Theology.” Mathews's own thought was a functionalism of extreme clarity and simplicity, which he used not only in biblical and historical theology, but in the problems of the school and its role as champion of the modernist cause against American fundamentalism. His role in the formation of the Federal Council of Churches and the Northern Baptist Convention reflects his view that the work of the school should be carried into the church.