Writings

As a pastor, missionary and seminary professor, Harvie Conn left us with a tremendous amount of written material. He wrote articles for magazines and journals; books; chapters, introductions, prefaces and forwards to books and anthologies; book reviews; sheet music; and sermons. For the archivist processing this collection, dealing with the writings of pastors, missionaries and theologians is a rather complex task. A writing that appears to be an article may have been published in a journal or magazine. Or it may have been one article among several published in a series pertaining to a certain topic. Or it may have been used as lecture notes for a class taught by the author, or the author may have used it (or adapted it) as a sermon or submitted it to be a chapter in an anthology. Or it may have been intended as an address at a Presbyterian General Assembly, or at a weeklong conference. Or it may never have been published at all. Most of Conn’s writings that survive today are arranged in this series under a sub-heading of Articles/Chapters, as that was the most pragmatic way to arrange them.

Also, the writings of a certain individual (such as Conn) constitute the most significant source of information that reveals his thoughts, opinions, values, worldview, and faith. That being the case, Conn’s writings were treated with singular importance, with each writing given its own folder, and itemized individually in this guide.

The last subseries within this series consists of a few writings whose authors could not be determined—and which seem not to be authored by Conn. This subseries is identified as Writings of Unknown Authorship.