Answered Questions - Lenker versus Lloyd Dougland: Both from Hamma Divinity

Lloyd C. Douglas became one of the best known writers of his era, starting as a Lutheran pastor and becoming a Congregationalist minister. He graduated from Hamma in 1903.

My latest research began with a question - How could tiny Hamma Divinity School (ULCA, LCA) turn out John N. Lenker and Lloyd C. Douglas? Lenker produced the enormously useful Sermons of Martin Luther. Douglas left the Lutheran Church, became a Congregationalist, and wrote best-sellers in his spare time, four of them turning into Hollywood movies.

I puzzled over this because my PhD dissertation actually began at Hamma Divinity's library, when the librarian gave me a box of books and a lead for a topic.

I always had a fondness for Lenker's Luther Sermons, as readers might have guessed. His ability to gather translators - including Lenski - was quite impressive. In those days, Lutheran academics could be united around Luther's preaching. Today they are united by scolding Luther or ignoring him altogether. They are only united in teaching against Justification by Faith.

Both men got involved in publishing. Lenker started his own publishing house - Lutherans in All Lands - was quite accomplished as a parish pastor. He taught at the Danish American seminary.

I ordered the Douglas autobiography and the second part, which his daughters wrote, about his adult career. Douglas received a call to Luther Place Memorial in Washington DC - considered a plum in those days. He a crisis of faith, which was never entirely explained, and resigned abruptly, taking a campus job, more of a social director for the YMCA. Later he got the itch to serve a parish again and became a Congregationalist minister.

Douglas was quite successful in Ann Arbor and in Akron, Ohio. However, in California, his liberal ways did not go over well with an elderly congregation. In those days, Congregationalists were not pan-religionists and social justice warriors as they are today in the merged United Church of Christ.

He gave away his lack of Confessional Lutheran loyalty when he paid for school playing the organ at Masonic Hall services (Wittenberg College and Hamma) and also in another location to boost his income. They paid "very well."

The two books about Douglas are a fascinating glimpse at the past,

 John Nicholas Lenker also graduated from Hamma in 1880 - and studied at Leipzig.

Hamma Divinity School Graduate - Lloyd C Douglas, 1877 - 1951. Wrote The Robe and Magnificent Obsession

Richard Burton, The Robe

Lloyd C Douglas, 1877 - 1951:



"Several of Douglas's books have been adapted into screen, Magnificent Obsession twice. GREEN LIGHT (1935) was filmed in 1936, starring Errol Flynn. After Captain Blood (1935) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) Flynn was labelled a swashbuckler, but in Green Light he was a dedicated doctor, who gives up his practice when a patient dies. The Robe, published 1942, gained wide audience as the first film in Cinemascope. The book's title refers to the crucifixion garment worn by Jesus. The protagonist of the story is a young Roman soldier, Marcellus, in charge of the Crucifixion. He wins in a dice game at the foot of the cross Christ's robe. Marcellus then starts to his quest to find the truth about Jesus. He becomes a convert and a martyr in Colosseum to the new religion. Burton in the role of Marcellus - in a short Roman mini skirt - was in his first great role. The book has sold over six million copies.

Douglas's last novel, THE BIG FISHERMAN (1948), shared the same New Testament world of Palestine and Rome and focused on Jesus, Peter, and a pair of young lovers., Esther and Voldi. The Roman world of the early Christian Church is carefully drawn. However, for a modern reader, the style is perhaps too tendentious. Douglas's main purpose was to present a Christian thesis in the form of a novel and include in the gospel narratives the aspect of human interest.

His last book was the autobiographical Time To Remember which described his life up to his childhood and education for the ministry. He died before he was able to write the intended second volume but the task was completed in The Shape of Sunday by his daughters, Virginia Douglas Dawson and Betty Douglas Wilson."

 Lloyd C. Douglas

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