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Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J. H. Oldham (Edinburgh: T&T Clark and Geneva: WCC Publications, 2000) xvii + 515 pp. ISBN 2-8254-1289-9, 8618.95, paperback.
Anyone who is ecumenically or theologically literate knows the famous names like Visser't Hooft, Bonhoeffer, Philip Potter, among others. But a pioneer who died in 1969 at the age of 95? Whose active public involvement in the ecumenical movement had tapered off by the early 1950's? Only by his writings - and there were many - would such a man probably be known to any of us.
Add to this the fact that Oldham himself was modest and self-effacing; preferred, perhaps because of his deafness, to work on a one to one basis or in small groups; and expressed himself most powerfully in writing - documents for committees; books, articles and interpretive reports; formal and informal correspondence.
Yet on a sundial at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva he is commemorated as "Missionary Statesman, Foremost Pioneer of the WCC, Friend of Africa." And Keith Clements, in his Epilogue, maintains,
If responsible existence requires memory, if a sense of history is important to every movement, community or organization, then such a life as this must be remembered and retrieved.
Clements traces that life in considerable detail, using six chronological thematic parts: To be a Missionary; Ecumenical Pathfinding; Mission and the Corridors of Colonial Power; Church, Community and State; Crisis, War and Society 193845; and "Still A Perfectly Mad Adventure" (Oldham's own term for authentic mission).
For a quick impression one can read the foreword, preface and prologue, as well as the epilogue, dip into those chapters which are of particular interest, and then browse through the chronology and the bibliography which comprises five sections: books and pamphlets, including books edited, by Oldham; articles in journals and books (excluding The Christian Newsletter); Oldham and The Christian Newsletter; a note on reviews by...