University of Oxford

The University of Oxford occupies a pivotal place in the account of Douglas Steere’s development. There he completed two degrees and encountered the Religious Society of Friends; the university setting thus marks both a stage in his philosophical education and a turning point in his spiritual search.

Study and Intellectual Formation

Steere went to the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship after qualifying for doctoral study in philosophy following two years of study elsewhere. At Oxford he received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. His education continued to develop after he returned to the United States: in 1931 he earned a PhD from Harvard University with a dissertation on Baron Friedrich von Hügel, the British Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian whose book The Mystical Element of Religion was an important reference point for Steere’s studies.

Encounter with the Religious Society of Friends

Oxford was also where Steere discovered the Religious Society of Friends. He came to value the silence of Quaker meetings, in which participants spoke only when moved by the Holy Spirit. The practice offered more than quiet: Steere described silent worship as capable of drawing people into a shared spiritual attentiveness, even across a strained relationship. He observed that it could help people separated by an ugly barrier begin asking forgiveness. His account also acknowledged that worshippers did not always live by the Quaker counsel, “When in doubt, wait.”

From Discovery to Practice

Steere’s encounter with the Quakers gave new force to his sense of Christ’s indwelling spirit. The university experience therefore joined study to practice: philosophical education proceeded alongside a form of worship that made inward religious life communal and tangible. The evidence does not describe Oxford’s buildings or institutional life in detail; its significance here lies in the change that took place in Steere’s religious understanding while he was there.

Place in Steere’s Career

After returning to the United States, Steere received an invitation from Rufus Jones to join the faculty at Haverford in 1928 and later succeeded Jones as chair of its philosophy department. His Oxford degrees and his discovery of the Religious Society of Friends belong to the formation that preceded this academic career. In the book’s account, Oxford stands at the junction of those paths: it was a place of advanced study and the setting for an encounter that shaped Steere’s subsequent religious life.