George Huntston Williams

George Huntston Williams
Born	(1914-04-07)April 7, 1914 Huntsburg, Ohio, US
Died	October 6, 2000(2000-10-06) (aged 86)
Spouse	Marjorie Derr ​ (m. 1941)​
Academic background
Alma mater	St. Lawrence University Meadville Theological School Union Theological Seminary
Influences	James Luther Adams
Academic work
Discipline	History
Institutions	Harvard University
Main interests	Socinianism
Notable works	The Radical Reformation (1962)

George Huntston Williams (April 7, 1914, in Huntsburg – October 6, 2000) was an American professor of Unitarian theology and historian of the Socinian movement.

Williams' father was a Unitarian minister in Ohio. Williams studied at St. Lawrence University (graduated 1936), and Meadville Theological School (graduated 1939). After studies in Paris and Strasbourg he became assistant minister of a Unitarian church in Rockford, Illinois, where he married. From 1941 he taught church history at the Unitarian-affiliated Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, CA, and at the nearby Pacific School of Religion, while studying for his ThD completed at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1946). From 1947 he taught at Harvard Divinity School, being appointed Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History from 1956 to 1963. In 1981 he was appointed to the Hollis Chair of Divinity. He was among the original Editorial Advisors of the scholarly journal Dionysius. As a pro-life activist, he became the first chairman of the board of Americans United for Life.

Works

• Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers: Documents Illustrative of the Radical Reformation, 1957
• The Polish Brethren : Documentation of the History and Thought of Unitarianism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the Diaspora 1601-1685, Scholars Press, 1980, ISBN 0-89130-343-X.
• The Radical Reformation, ISBN 0-940474-15-8.
• Unterschiede zwischen dem polnischen und dem siebenbürgisch-ungarischen Unitarismus und ihre Ursachen, in: Wolfgang Deppert/Werner Erdt/Aart de Groot (Hrsg.): Der Einfluß der Unitarier auf die europäisch-amerikanische Geistesgeschichte, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main/Bern/New York/Paris 1990, ISSN 0930-4118, ISBN 3-631-41859-0, S. 33-57.
• Article The Attitude of Liberals in New England toward Non-Christian Religions, 1784–1885, Crane Review 9.

External links

• A collection of papers on pro-life organizations in the United States and abortion issues by George Huntston Williams is in the Andover-Harvard Theological Library at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.