[Keep in mind that there was more than one Rufus Jones: There was the Rufus Jones that I am writing about: a writer, philosopher, and a Quaker. There was also an American wrestler by the name of Rufus R. Jones (1933 - 1993), an actor Rufus Jones who was born in 1975, and an American jazz drummer, Rufus Speedy Jones.]
Our Rufus Jones was the American writer, philosopher and Quaker. He was born in South China, Maine, the town where I spent all my summers with my grandparents from 1945 to 1954. The church we went to in South China was, I think, the only church and it was a Quaker church so it is very likely that Rufus Jones went to that church and he probably was in church many times in the first three years that I went to that church with my grandparents.
For some reason, my Aunt, my father's sister, told me to not have any interest in Rufus Jones. Unfortunately, she died before I could ask her why, and I have to say that one of the reasons I decided to study Rufus Jones was because she warned me off of him and I knew that Howard Thurman thought highly of him. I could not imagine that there was anything wrong about him, and I have never found anything wrong about him in all the years I have been reading and studying and learning more and more about both Rufus Jones and Howard Thurman.
Rufus Jones was born into an old Quaker family in South China Maine. He graduated from Haverford College in 1885 and he earned his MA there in 1886. From 1893 to 1912 he was the editor of the Friends' Review, later called The American Friend. And he taught at Haverford for his whole career. In 1917, he helped found the American Friends service Committee. He traveled to Asia in 1927 for the YMCA and he went to China to address missionaries, and then on to Japan, India, and palestine as well. While in India, Jones visited Mahatma Gandhi and the birth place of the Buddha. According to Wikipedia, Jones learned a new approach to missions, that of giving humanitarian aid to people while respecting other religions and not aggressively converting people to one's own religion.
[After many years of my going to South China Maine for the whole summer, my grandfather, a science teacher at Peekskill Military Academy, became a leader of this school which was founded in 1833. in 1841, the academy decided to only admit boys. The academy declined and was closed in June 1968. The buildings were razed to make room for a new Peekskill High School building. The Ford Administration Building remains and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.]
Jones wanted to see the world become a much more peaceful world. And so, in 1938, he and two others men went to Germany to try and find a peaceful way of dealing with the Nazis.
Having not found any reason that I should stay away from Rufus Jones, I have read much of what he wrote and I have several of his 52 books.
Howard Thurman learned a lot from Rufus Jones. At Oberlin, he encountered the work of Rufus Jones, a Quaker mystic and leader of the pacifist Interracial Fellowship of Reconciliation. Thurman eventually studied with Jones, and described this time as the watershed event of his life. However, Jones' focus was global, and Thurman thought local. "How can we manage the carking fear of the white man's power," he asked, "and not be defeated by our own rage and hatred?"
( http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html )
Evidently it was somewhat common for people to go and visit Gandhi in these times. Rufus Jones went in 1927, and Thurman and his wife went with a Negro Delegation of Friendship in 1936 where he met with Mohandas Gandhi. His conversations with Gandhi broadened his theological and international vision. In his autobiography, Thurman said that in his meeting with Ghandi, the Mahatma expressed his wish that the message of non-violence be sent to the world by African-Americans. (http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html )
