Author Abbott Lyman

e, was editor of the Illustrated Christian Weekly for six years, and was co-editor (1876-1881) of The Christian Union with Henry Ward Beecher, whom he succeeded in 1888 as pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. From this pastorate he resigned ten years later. From 1881 he was editor-in-chief of The Christian Union, renamed The Outlook in 1893; this periodical reflected his efforts toward social reform, and, in theology, a liberality, humanitarian and nearly unitarian. The latter characteristics marked his published works also. Abbott's opinions differed from those of Beecher. Abbott was a constant advocate of social reform, and was an advocate of Theodore Roosevelt's progressivism for almost 20 years. He would later adopt a pronouncedly liberal theology. He was also a pronounced Christian Evolutionist.[3] His son, Lawrence Fraser Abbott, accompanied President Roosevelt on a tour of Europe and Africa (1909-10). In 1913 Lyman Abbott was expelled from the American Peace Society because military preparedness was vigorously advocated in the Outlook,[4] which he edited, and because he was a member of the Army and Navy League. During the War he was a strong supporter of the government's war policies. Lyman Abbott died on October 22, 1922 and was buried in the New Windsor Cemetery in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. He edited Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher (2 vols., 1868). In two of these works, The Evolution of Christianity and The Theology of an Evolutionist, Abbott applied the concept of evolution in a Christian theological perspective. Although he himself objected to being called an advocate of Darwinism, he was an obtimistic advocte of evolution who though that "what Jesus saw, humanity is becoming." Reid, Daniel G., et al. Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, IL:InterVarsity Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8308-1776-X.