NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A former dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity School
who played a role in one of the most controversial episodes in the
University’s history died July 6 in Houston. The Rev. J. Robert Nelson,
83, was at Vanderbilt from 1957 to 1960.
During his three-year tenure as dean, the Divinity School
experienced tremendous expansion in the size and diversity of the
student population, in the range of programs the school offered, in the
breadth and quality of the faculty and visitors brought in to speak at
the school and in its physical facilities, with the construction of the
quadrangle the school still occupies.
An ordained Methodist minister, Nelson earned a master’s degree in
divinity from Yale and a doctorate of theology from the University of
Zurich, where he studied under the personal tutelage of famed
theologian Emil Brunner. Nelson came to Vanderbilt from the staff of
the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland.
Nelson was a noted ecumenist, whose passion was to encourage the
different denominations of Christianity and different branches of the
church to talk constructively about the path to unity.
Gene Davenport, president of the student cabinet at the Divinity
School in the 1959-60 academic year and now chairman of the department
of religion and philosophy and chair of the steering committee for the
Lambuth-B’nai Israel Center for Jewish Studies at Lambuth University,
reflected on Nelson’s legacy: "He always had the best interests of the
Divinity School at heart. In large part because of his years with the
World Council of Churches, he brought more important world leaders in
the world of Christianity to speak at Vanderbilt than anyone before or
probably since. This created a very important place for the school,
elevating the content of the school and, in turn, its image."
Nelson’s term at Vanderbilt was not without controversy, however. He
led the Divinity School during turbulent times in Southern and
University history.
In 1960, Chancellor Harvie Branscomb expelled James Lawson, a black
Divinity School student and affiliate of Martin Luther King Jr.’s
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Along with numerous other
Divinity School students, Lawson had a role in the sit-in
demonstrations in downtown Nashville department stores.
The high-profile series of events played out on the front pages of
the daily papers and involved Nashville Mayor Ben West and newspaper
publisher and Vanderbilt Board of Trust member James G. Stahlman.
Nelson protested the dismissal and eventually resigned from the
University.
On learning of Nelson’s death, Lawson told the Associated Press,
"Robert Nelson was at the center of the crisis at Vanderbilt. He
handled the crisis with poise, Christian strength and character."
After leaving Vanderbilt, Nelson went on to become a professor and, later, dean of the Boston University School of Theology.
According to reports by the Associated Press, in the 1970s and
1980s, he took an interest in the burgeoning field of bioethics,
pioneering the study of the relationship between medical ethics,
genetics and theology and producing ethical and religious guidelines on
cloning in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health.
Following this interest, he left Boston in 1985 to head the Institute
of Religion at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, where he remained
until the early 1990s.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 17, at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston.
Media contact: Susanne Hicks, (615) 322-NEWS
susanne.hicks@vanderbilt.edu