William R. Hutchison, 75, scholar of religious history
William R. Hutchison, a leading scholar of American religious history, died Friday at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was 75. The cause of death was stomach cancer, according to his daughter, Elizabeth.
At the time of his death, Dr. Hutchison was Charles Warren research professor of American religious history at Harvard Divinity School. From 1968-2000, he was Charles Warren professor of the history of religion in America.
Dr. Hutchison was ''the dean of American religious historians," said David
Hailing Dr. Hutchison's ''consistent professionalism and refusal to be stampeded by ideological or doctrinal pressures," Hollinger said that ''more than any other single historian he has given us an understanding of the internal workings of liberal Protestant thought from the late 19th century through the 1960s."
Dr. Hutchison was to have received the Distinguished Career Achievement Award of the American Society of Church History in January.
He was the author of several books, including ''The Transcendentalist Ministers: Church Reform in the New England Renaissance" (1959), ''The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism" (1976), and ''Religious Pluralism in America: The Contentious History of a Founding Ideal" (2003). He was editor or coeditor of four other books, most notably ''American Protestant Thought: The Liberal Era" (1968) and ''Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900-1960" (1989).
''I call myself a card-carrying pluralist," Dr. Hutchison said in an interview with the Harvard Divinity Bulletin last year. He emphasized that ''pluralist" wasn't synonymous with ''wishy-washy."
''In fact, it doesn't make sense for a pluralist, who presumably agrees everyone should have a right to convictions (even absolute ones) to then turn around and deny such a right to himself or herself," he said. ''So it really doesn't make sense to say that a pluralist can't hold strong convictions."
Dr. Hutchison commuted between his Cambridge home and Widener Library on a three-speed Schwinn bicycle, and he spoke in the drawly tones of Jimmy Stewart (according to his daughter, he did an expert Stewart impression) and had the imposing look of a Puritan minister.
Of course, looks can be deceiving. Dr. Hutchison had a weakness for bad puns and fondness for old vaudeville routines. His amiable manner stood him in good stead when he and his wife, Virginia Quay Hutchison, served as comasters of a Harvard undergraduate residence, John Winthrop House, from 1974-79. The couple married in 1952.
Dr. Hutchison also loved to sing. During the early '70s, he was a member of Masterworks Chorale when he and his family lived in Lexington. Two years ago, he successfully auditioned for membership in Chorus pro Musica. Dr. Hutchison was an active member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge. Elizabeth Hutchison, of Albuquerque, N.M., said in a telephone interview yesterday that her father's Quakerism ''was closely related to his lifelong interest in religion and pluralism and his liberal political ideals -- as well as his very intellectual approach to faith."
Dr. Hutchison was born May 21, 1930, in San Francisco. His parents were Ralph Cooper Hutchison, an educator, and Harriet (Thompson) Hutchison.
Dr. Hutchison's father was a Presbyterian minister and a founder of the American University in Persia. Coming across one of his old letters inspired Dr. Hutchison to write a book, ''Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions" (1987).
After graduating from Hamilton College in 1951, Dr. Hutchison earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Oxford University and a doctorate from Yale University. He held positions at Yale University, Hunter College, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and American University before coming to Harvard. On Fulbright fellowships, he also taught in Germany, India, and Indonesia.
In addition to his wife and daughter Elizabeth, Dr. Hutchison leaves a sister, Mary H. Fletcher of Mount Dora, Fla.; a son, Joseph of Ridgefield, Conn.; two other daughters, Margaret of Berkeley, Calif., and Catherine Winnie of Rochester, N.Y.; and 10 grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at Friends Meeting House in Cambridge on Jan. 21. A service will also be held at Harvard's Memorial Church on April 28.
