Gaius Glenn Atkins

He was born in Mount Carmel, Indiana to Thomas Benjamin Atkins and Caroline Morris. He graduated from Ohio State University in 1888, and was a member of Beta Theta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Cincinnati Law School in 1891, and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1892. He received a D.D. from Dartmouth and L.H.D. in 1923 from the University of Vermont. In 1933, he obtained his Litt.D. from Ohio State University.[3]

He worked at Mount Hermon School from 1892-1894. He was ordained in 1895. He served churches in Greenfield, Massachusetts (1894-1900), Burlington, Vermont (1900-1906), First Congregational Church in Detroit, Michigan (1906-1910, 1917), and at Central Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island from 1910 to 1917.[4][5] He was a professor of Homiletics at Auburn Seminary from 1927-1939. He authored many titles on religion, including Modern Religious Cults and Movements.[4][6] One sermon preached at Central Church in 1914 was entitled The Right and Wrong of Feminism.[5] Atkins was critical of religious and other movements such as Baháʼí Faith, Christian Science, Unity Church, New Thought, and Theosophy .[7]

In 1914, he was the winner of the Carnegie Church Peace Union prize for the best essay on international peace.[8]

He preached at Wellesley College in 1916, and gave the Ohio State commencement address in 1933.[9][10]

He married Ada Haynes in Bellbrook, Ohio in 1892. Children included Helen, Morris, Laurence, and Robert Atkins.

• Pilgrims of the Lonely Road (1913)
• The Maze of the Nations and the Way Out (1915)
• The Godward Side of Life (1917)
• Jerusalem Past and Present: The City of Undying Memories (1918)
• Modern Religious Cults and Movements (1923)
• Religion In Our Times (1932)
• Master Sermons Of The Nineteenth Century (1940)
• History of American Congregationalism (1942)