William Newton Clarke

1841-1912. Baptist minister and theologian. Born in Cazenovia, New York, he was educated at Madison (now Colgate) University and Theological Seminary. Particularly influential was his pastorate at Newton, Massachusetts (1869-80), where he was drawn to the liberalism of Andover and Newton theologians. From 1890 to 1908 he taught Christian theology at Colgate. Sensitive and cosmopolitan, he stressed the evolution of divine revelation and human goodness. His combination of Christian theology and evolutionary thinking is best expressed in his major work, An Outline of Christian Theology (1898), the first systematic theology of liberalism in America. By 1914 this work, described by Lyman Abbott as the most religious theology ever written, was in its twentieth printing.