The social gospel of E. Nicholas Comfort

the long version

Rev. E. Nicholas Comfort (1884-1955), a leading southwestern proponent of the social gospel, was the founder and director, between 1926 and 1946, of the Oklahoma School of Religion, one of the nation's foremost early experiments in interdenominational religious education. This biography, by historian Robert C. Cottrell, describes how Presbyterian Nick Comfort - "a transitional figure between frontier days past and a soon-to-be-modern state" - remained true to his belief in the the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God despite the Great Depression, anti-Communist witch-hunts, Jim Crow, and militarism. This important contribution to the intellectual history of the Southwest is enlivened by a generous sampling of Comfort's writings and by vignettes of his down-home-but well-educated family and their Oklahoma farm. Comfort, a true rugged individualist, continued to build his own houses and grow his own food even after he had become an important figure in university and state politics.