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Nathan Soderblom
(1866-1931)
Swedish Lutheran archbishop and theologian who in 1930 received the
Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts to further international understanding
through church unity.
Ordained a minister in 1893, Soderblom served seven years as a chaplain
to the Swedish legation in Paris before becoming professor of theology
at his alma mater, the University of Uppsala (1901). He was appointed
archbishop of Uppsala and primate of Sweden in 1914. Soderblom was an
outspoken pacifist whose interest in Christian unity bore fruit when
the first Universal Conference on Life and Work met in Stockholm in
1925. The series of these conferences eventually united with the conferences
on Faith and Order to form the World Council of Churches. Soderblom
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 for his efforts on behalf
of Christian unity. His most important book is Gudstrons uppkomst (1914),
a study emphasizing holiness rather than the idea of God as the basic
notion in religious thought.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Charles J. Curtis, Nathan Soderblom: Theologian of Revelation (1966),
and Soderblom, Ecumenical Pioneer (1967); Eric J. Sharpe, Nathan Soderblom
and the Study of Religion (1990).
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