Encyclopedia of Religion and Society

Whitman, Lauris B.

(1909-1983) B.D., Andover-Newton; Ph.D., Penn State. First president, Religious Research Association (1959-1961).

Whitman’s career bridged religion and the social sciences: pastorates, sociology professor, most of 1955-1969 employed by the National Council of Churches as Research Department Director, where he drew upon the expertise of consultant sociologists for in-house and interdenominational research planning. He also employed a psychologist for a landmark Christian education study. As first president of the church-oriented Religious Research Association, he performed a liaison function with the academically oriented Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. In his 1966 RRA H. Paul Douglass lecture, “Religion and Social Science: Two Worlds or One?” (in the Review of Religious Research 1968), he described desirable collaboration between religion and the social sciences.

—Everett L. Perry