Religion Of Human Brotherhood

John Herman Randall(1871-1946).  His New York Times obituary stated that, “Dr. John Herman Randall, retired clergyman and leader of the World Unity movement, died on Wednesday in his home at 527 Riverside Drive. His age was 75.”

Dr. Randall, who sometimes referred to himself simply as John Herman Randall, attained prominence in his youth as an orator, and later as an author of philosophical works. His ardent championship of the fellowship of all mankind had led him, like John Haynes Holmes_[1], with whom he was associated from 1919 to 1927, to frequently discard the “Dr.” before his name.

Born in St. Paul, Minn., he was graduated from Colgate University in 1892, and was licensed a preacher in 1888. Ordained to the Baptist ministry in 1895, he started as a pastor in Chenoa, Ill. For several years he was pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church in Minneapolis, and later of the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.
In 1906 he came to the Mount Morris Baptist Church of New York. In 1919, Dr. Randall joined Mr. Holmes, who had been pastor of the Church of the Messiah, Park Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, since 1907, in reorganizing it as the Community Church, which Mr. Holmes still heads, and of which Dr. Randall became associate minister. “In accepting this call I free myself of those limitations that are inevitable in the denominational church,” he said. “I shall henceforth stand frankly for the universal religion of human brotherhood.”
He retired in 1927 to become director of the World Unity Foundation, and editor of its magazine …. Dr. Randall had once said that he believed the religions of Christianity and Buddhism should be united.

Publications: The New Thought movement: first in a series of sermons (1908 or 1909); A New Philosophy of Life (1911); The Culture of Personality (1912); Humanity at the Cross-roads (1915); The Life of Reality (1916); The Essence of Democracy (1919); The Spirit of the New Philosophy (1919); With Soul on Fire; a novel (1919); The New Light on Immortality; or, The Significance of Psychic Research (1921); The Irrepressible Conflict in Religion (1925); (with John Herman Randall, Jr.) Religion and the Modern World (1929); A World Community: the Supreme Task of the Twentieth Century (1930); The Mastery of Life (1931).

[1] John Haynes Holmes (1879–1964) was a prominent Unitarian minister and pacifist, noted for his anti-war activism. He was one of the people who publicized the work of Gandhi from his pulpit in the United States; Holmes describes his meetings and interactions with Gandhi in his book My Gandhi. He was a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award.