Talk:H. B. Sharman

Untitled

If anyone cares, these are some of the thoughts that went through my head when I recently made some changes to this article. I have decided to entirely omit the following phrase, written by someone else:

"Nor did he feel sufficiently free to express his own views in the setting provided by the SVM and the YMCA."

It was clearly out of place, since Sharman left the SVM prior to going to the University of Chicago; furthermore, it could be argued that Sharman never ever sought to "express his own views" -- that went against his method of teaching -- however, this is debatable, since this teaching style was probably honed at U. of Chicago.

I know that Sharman said something heretical, or against the religious sensibilities of the SVM and YMCA leadership at the time -- but that is from my independent research in the fonds, I can't verify it in an external source. And we don't know what it was that he said yet, or who considered it heretical. It is one of the mysteries of Sharman. Perhaps he was let go, perhaps he quit because his ability to teach the way he wanted was being thwarted because others felt that his education was limited.

I had thought to say something about how he left the SVM and YMCA to go to University, but clearly the above phrase could not be reworked. Although he left the position at the YMCA and SVM, he was still considered a capable Biblical speaker and was often asked to speak at their events in the years following his professorship -- much to the consternation of some of his previous contemporaries who had set him on his unique path of education and teaching.

I have opted to just leave the phrase out entirely, it had so much wrong with it.

Instead, I have here introduced Knox's view that Sharman represented a completely different view of the Kingdom of God as a segue. It could be argued that this too is out-of-sequence, but at least I have handled it without introducing other errors of fact. I didn't really know where else to put Knox's views of Sharman anyway - I only know that I needed to, since this article was going to be removed if it could be shown that it wasn't important enough. While Knox didn't agree with Sharman, he felt he was the most noteworthy leading voice in one of three differing theological views on the Kingdom of God - the others being Schweitzer and Dodd. This article should not be removed, it should continue to improve.

I have several pictures of Sharman that I found in the fonds, and they are freely distributable, but since I have not made 10 edits anywhere, I can't upload them here. I uploaded one of them to LibraryThing - and I don't know if that means it is now copyrighted by them. Even if it is, I have others.

Note to the Chicago Wiki Project: you should also have a wiki on Sharman's wife, Abby. She graduated from Chicago with her doctorate in Literature with distinction. She wrote The Cape Cod Journal, and also the first Engish biography on Sun Yat Sen, which is still widely quoted, in addition to several books of poetry; she also was a successor to Nellie McClung in the west, in the Women's Journalist clubs. All of this is important, but it doesn't necessarily belong in Henry's page.

Onionskintorpor (talk) 01:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)