James Thayer Addison

Early life and education Addison was born on March 21, 1887, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Addison’s father was The Rev. Charles Morris Addison (1856-1947) who was an Episcopal parish priest and author. His mother was Ada Thayer Addison (1856-1934). He is the great grandson of Charles Morris who served on the USS Constitution.

From 1900 to 1905, Addison attended and graduated from the Groton School. He graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1909. Immediately after graduating from Harvard, Addison went to China where he taught for a year in St. John's University, Shanghai.

After his year in Shanghai, Addison returned to the United States and entered the Episcopal Theological School. He graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree 1913. Right after graduating, Addison was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church on June 7, 1913. As soon as he was ordained deacon, he went as a missionary to Oklahoma where he was ordained a priest on December 13, 1913.

During his time in Oklahoma, 1913-1915, Addison was minister in charge of St. Mark’s Church, Nowata, Oklahoma, and St. Paul’s Church in Claremore, Oklahoma. Both of these churches were in Indian Territory. Addison’s bishop, Theodore Payne Thurston, said that the two stations under Addison’s charge “are not only continuing their good record, but are improving upon it.”

Career as professor

After his service in Oklahoma, Addison joined the faculty of the Episcopal Theological School as a lecturer in the History of Religion and Missions, 1915-1918.

On December 18, 1917, Addison married Margaret Beecher Crocker (1896-1978).

In 1922, the Episcopal Theological School began a plan of its professor of History of Religion and Missions to a place in the mission field six months every three years. Under this plan, Addison went to China in 1922. He spent the months of March, April and May 1922 teaching at Boone University, Wuchang. Addison resumed teaching his regular courses in the fall of 1922.

In 1926, Addison was promoted to full professor in 1926. He held this position until 1940 when he resigned.

During the academic year of 1932-33, Addison served “as acting Master of Kirkland House” at Harvard University.

In 1940, Addison resigned his position as professor in the Episcopal Theological School in 1940 to take a position with the National Council of the Episcopal Church.

On April 7, 1944, the Archbishop of York (Cyril Garbett) arrived in New York City. As representing the Episcopal Church, Addison met him.

On April 25–27, 1944, the National Council of the Episcopal Church, Addison (vice-president of the Council and head of the Overseas Department) read several “cable and radio-grams” from the Chinese Church. They proposed opening a second St. John’s University in Free China to enable students living in Free China to attend St. John’s without having to go to the St. John’s University located in a Japanese controlled area. While in favor of the proposal, Addison’s motion was that it be endorsed but not founded by the National Council. The National Council endorsed the idea with a token gift of $2,000.

In 1947, poor health compelled Addison to resign his position as vice president of the National Council and executive of the Overseas Department. The Episcopal Church magazine The Living Church, in is report of Addison’s retiring wrote that his travel and study “bore full fruition in planning” the missionary program of the Episcopal Church.

In retirement, Addison continued writing. When he died, he had just completed writing his final book, War, Peace, and the Christian Mind. It was published posthumously.

Honors, positions and tributes Addison was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

In Addison’s honor, the James Thayer Addison Fellowship Fund was established. Its income is “to be used for the training of young men and women, members of the Anglican Communion, natives of areas formerly or now a part of the overseas work of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who desire to serve the Church as Church workers, clerical or lay, among their own people.”

Addison was awarded a Doctor of Divinity honorary degree by the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1931.

Addison died of a heart attack on February 13, 1953, at his home in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of sixty-five. Outline of Topics for a Course on Overseas Missions (publisher not identified, 1945). The Completeness of Christ (Morehouse-Gorham, 1947). Our Expanding Church (New York, The National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1944). The Way of Christ (Forward Movement Publications, 1949). Translated into Chinese by Qun Ye as Yesu zhi lu (Shanghai: Guang xue hui, Minguo 29, 1940). The Episcopal Church in the United States, 1789-1931 (Scribner, 1951). In this book Addison says that an institutional church is “a city church organized to provide not only worship and instruction but an expanding array of social services.” Early Anglican Thought, 1559-1667 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1953). War, Peace, and the Christian Mind: A Review of Recent Thought (Seabury Press, 1953).

Articles “Ancestor Worship in Africa,” Harvard Theological Review, 1924. OCLC 26140234 “The Ahmadiyya Movement and its Western Propaganda,” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 22, (1929) “Thomas Fuller, Historian and Humorist,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Vol. 21, No. 1, "The Caroline Divines Number" (March, 1952) “Jeremy Taylor, Preacher and Pastor,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Vol. 21, No. 1, "The Caroline Divines Number" (March, 1952)