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Biography of Nathan SöderblomName: Nathan SöderblomBirth Date: January 15, 1866 Death Date: July 12, 1931 Place of Birth: Trönö, Sweden Nationality: Swedish Gender: Male Occupations: religious leader Nathan Söderblom The Swedish churchman Nathan Söderblom (1866-1931) was an important leader in the ecumenical movement for the unification of Christian Churches. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 for his efforts in the area of international understanding.Theologically and intellectually the life of Nathan Söderblom was characterized by tensions. His father was a fervent Pietist minister of Swedish yeoman stock, and his mother came from a liberal Danish background. Nathan Söderblom was born Lars Jonathan Söderblom on Jan. 15, 1866, in Trönö (Hälsingland). As a young man, he pursued theological studies at the University of Uppsala. During the period he was minister of the busy Swedish church at Paris (1894-1901), Söderblom earned his theological doctorate at the Sorbonne (1901). Returning to Sweden, he became professor of the history of religion at Uppsala, and from 1914 to 1931 he served as vice chancellor of …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…its character as a religion of historic revelation, against the mysticisms of infinity, pantheisms, and deisms. According to Söderblom, the tension between the transcendence and the nearness of God, between His perfections and His presence, and between ethics and religious experience inherent in this dynamic concept found its original unity in the person of Jesus Christ. This ensured the redemptive rather than the arbitrary character of history. Moreover, Söderblom overcame the then prevalent notion that a personal god belonged to an obsolete, earlier, and less ethical stage in religion. He emphasized that the center of Christianity was neither doctrines nor institutions but the person of Jesus Christ.Söderblom died in Uppsala on July 12, 1931. Further Reading The best biography of Söderblom, which also gives an idea of the scope of his mind, is Bengt Sundkler, Nathan Söderblom: His Life and Work (1968). |