Holmes, John Haynes [key], 1879–1964, American clergyman, b. Philadelphia, grad. Harvard, 1902, and Harvard Divinity School, 1904. For 42 years (1907–49) he was minister of the Community Church, New York City; in 1949 he became pastor emeritus. The church belonged to the Unitarian denomination until 1919, when it became nondenominational. The causes supported by Holmes's effective public addresses included the abolition of intolerance and of war. A founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and of the American Civil Liberties Union, he was long actively associated with both organizations. Among his many books are A Sensible Man's View of Religion (1932) and The Affirmation of Immortality (1947).
See his autobiography (1959); study by C. H. Voss (1964).
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