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Charles Frederic Aked (1864–1941) was an influencial British-born-turned-American progressive Protestant clegeryman whose theology, during his career, began as a Reformed or Strict Baptist, then Congregationalist, then Independent.

Career
Aked worked for racial equality, women's suffrage, temperance, Christian unity, and world peace. Minister in Liverpool (1890 to 1907), he gained a reputation as an advocate for social justice. He worked for Christian unity in Britain alongside F. B. Meyer (1847–1929) and John Clifford (1836–1923). He went to New York City to serve as pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church (1907–1911). Aken was an exponent of women's suffrage and was a friend of Ethel Snowden. Beginning around 1894, Aken became outspoken against racial injustices, notably lynching in the United States, and by 1895, became a supporter of and friends with Ida B. Wells. Liberal theologically, he worked for the relief of Syrians (see Great Syrian Revolt and Assyrian genocide) and Armenians (see Armenian Genocide) after World War I and with Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918), condemned the arms trade.

Aked emerged around 1908 as an avowed foe of what is commonly known as fundamentalism in religion and rejected the miraculous in religion (see )  – he averred that the ethics of Christianity should furnish sufficient inspiration for noble, useful, and happy living.

Towards the end the of Great Depression, Aked took a right-wing political stand against the re-election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, declaring that a third term (see 1940 United States presidential election) would lead to the end of democracy and establish a dictatorship in America.

Education
Charles Aked was born in Nottingam, England, where he grew up and attended:
 * Mr. J. Lee's Commercial School, a small school in Nottingham
 * Midland Baptist College
 * University College Nottingham
 * later, earned a D.D. degree


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John Clifford, a Free Church contemporary of Aked, in 1883 he was given the honorary degree of DD by Bates College, United States, being known thereafter as Dr Clifford. The distinction, from a small American college, afterwards led to sarcastic allusions, but Clifford had not courted it. Moreover, Clifford has been chronicled as a bona fide liturgical scholar from his achievements at the University of London. In England, Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) and Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) rejected being called "doctor", but accepted the title "reverend". By 1907, three honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees had been conferred upon Aken. But, at the beginning of his pastorship with the Rockefeller Baptist Church, he dispensed not only with the title "D.D.", but also "Reverend."

Career

 * 1880: Clerk in a coal office
 * 1882: Auctioneer and valuer for the Sheriff of Derbyshire, England, until 1883, when he entered Midland Baptist College, Nottingham
 * 1884: Nottingham Baptist College
 * 1885: Pastor of the Baptist Chapel, Ilkeston
 * 1886–1888: Pastor of the Baptist Chapel at Syston, near Leicester
 * 1888–188?: Pastor, joint churches of St. Helens and Earlestown, branch churches of Myrtle Street, Liverpool.
 * October 1890–1906: Pastor of Pembroke Baptist Church, Liverpool
 * April 1907–1911: Pastor of the John D. Rockefeller Church (Fifth Avenue Baptist) in Manhattan, the forerunner to Riverside Church.
 * 1912: Congregational Church, Atlanta
 * 1911–1916: First Congregational Church, San Francisco
 * July 26, 1916: Aked resigned as Chairman of the American Committee to the Ford Neutral Peace Conference (not to be confused with the original Peace Ship; see ) in Stockholm, citing, "the delegation as utterly failed in its object of bringing about peace, and that there is no possibility that the conference, composed of crazy cranks and dreamers, could do anything towards peace."
 * 1917: First Congregational Church of Riverside, California; Aked was guest Pastor from Easter Sunday 1917 through the of 1917. Rev. Horace Porter, who had been Pastor there for 8 years, resigned and gave his last sermon Easter Sunday, April 8, 1917.
 * 1919–1924: First Congregational Church at Admiral Boulevard and Highland Avenue, Kansas City
 * October 1924–1931: Associate-Pastor with Dr. Frank Dyer, of Wilshire Boulevard Congregational Church (the building is currently the Wilshire United Methodist Church) on Wilshire Boulevard at South Plymouth Street (4350 Wilshire Boulevard), Los Angeles.
 * 1928–19??: Pastor and founder of All-Souls Church, Los Angeles, which occupied the Wilshire Boulevard Congregational Church from mid-1928 through January 1931. All Souls moved into the Ambassador Hotel Theater in 1931, where, in 1924, the Wilshire Congregational Church was housed before their church building had been erected.


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All Souls Church

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Wilshire Boulevard Congregational Church (currently, the Wilshire United Methodist Church) on Wilshire Boulevard at South Plymouth Street (4350 Wilshire Boulevard), Los Angeles.

In 1922, the architect, Carleton M. Winslow, Sr., produced a $500,000 scheme for this church that was rejected in favor of a plan by Allison and Allison. The Wilshire Congregational congregation underwent a great amount of turmoil in the 1920s, removing its outspoken pastor, Dr. Frank Dyer (1875–1963) around 1929. A Los Angeles Examiner newspaper article of February 22, 1926, scandalously indicated that the reverend was playing jazz in the church.

In an Los Angeles Times article of July 27, 1925, the pastor was accused of being a supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union, considered by many during the Red Scare of the 1920s to have been a communist front organization. Dyer, a frequent radio address in the 1920s, urged for greater inter-denominational tolerance and understanding. He brought in a liberal colleague, Dr. Charles F. Aked, to act as co-pastor in October 1924, but this cooperation ended in mid-1925 when Aked resigned. The Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1925, published a lengthy list of those with grievances against Dyer, and this included the architects, Allison and Allison. The 550-member congregation itself merged with Aked's nearby All Soul's Congregational Church in May 1929, and the new All Soul's Congregational Church used this building for a very short time before putting it up for sale. This costly building became the Wilshire Methodist Church shortly after it was constructed.

Unbuilt. The building had its ceremonial cornerstone-laying, December 22, 1924, and its completion was set before June 1, 1925. The church was to be in the "Italian Gothic" style and would seat 1400, according to a Los Angeles Times article of December 22, 1924. The tower soared 144 feet above the church overlooking Wilshire Boulevard, and could be seen from five miles away.


 * Concrete in Architecture, 1927.
 * "Church Plans New Building", Los Angeles Times, 9, 01/19/1923.
 * "Notables help in stone laying", Los Angeles Times, A2, 12/22/1924.
 * "Wilshire church to open", Los Angeles Times, A2, 05/23/1925.
 * "Church to be dedicated", Los Angeles Times, B7, 05/24/1925.
 * "A Page Conducted by John Steven", Los Angeles Times, K3, 06/14/1925.
 * "Pastor scored by statement", Los Angeles Times, A1, 07/27/1925.
 * "Winslow loses Wilshire Congregational Church Commission to Allison and Allison", Los Angeles Times, 7, 03/18/1923.
 * "Split over Church Site Threatens", Los Angeles Times, 10, 12/14/1923.

South Africa


December 22, 1901, Peace Sunday, Aked, stated: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth – the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism ... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps." He is followed home by a large crowd and they smash the windows of his house.


 * Peace Sunday was observed on the third Sunday of December by all peace societies, including the department of peace and arbitration of the world's W.C.T.U.

U.S. Citizen
Aked became a U.S. naturalized citizen June 30, 1913, in the Superior Court of California at San Francisco (cite U.S. Passport application, June 21, 1923)

Views
On February 1, 1914, in San Francisco, Aked stated in a sermon that he did not support the doctrine of the miraculous conception and birth of Christ.

Affiliations

 * Member, Aborigines' Protection Society
 * 1902: Passive Resistance League: Aked – with John Clifford as leader, William John Townsend, D.D. (1835–1915), John Massie, M.P. (1842–1925), Thomas Law, D.D. (1854–1910), and others, all non-conformist (aka Free Church) ministers – founded the Passive Resistance League at Bolton to combat the Education Act 1902.
 * 1915: Took part in Henry Ford's Peace Ship
 * Neutral Conference (aka Ford Conference}
 * Member, Stop the War Committee

Selected writings





 * Bulletin: . Sermon:.





Honors

 * 1916: Inducted as a Member, Annual Journal of the National Institute of Social Sciences
 * 1914: Gold medalist, light-weight tackle class, for catching a 43+1/2 lb [California] yellowtail (seriola dorsalis), 16th Annual Summer Sea Angling Tournament, Tuna Club of Avalon

Honorary degrees

 * June 8, 1898: Honorary Doctor of Divinity, Morris Brown University, Atlanta, conferred upon Aken by James M. Henderson, D.D. (1859–1927), President
 * May 1901: Honorary Doctor of Divinity, Temple University, Philadelphia
 * June 19, 1907: Honorary Doctor of Divinity, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, conferred upon Aked by Joseph Edward Stubbs (1850–1914), President
 * October 3, 1913: Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Nevada, Reno
 * June 3, 1923: Honorary Doctorate, Drury College, Springfield, Missouri, in its 50th anniversary. Aked, at the time, was living in Kansas City
 * June 8, 1929: Honorary Litt.D., University of Southern California (see List: Honary degrees conferred by the University of Southern California (es))

Family
In 1886, Aked married Ann Hithersay (maiden; 1867–1934) of Ilkeston, England. They had no children. Mabel Aked, listed as his daughter, married A. E. Fitzmorris at the Whilshire Crest Presbyterian Church, a church founded in 1928 that tried to survive as a black-white integrated church, but finally dissolved December 31, 1974.

His mother, Ann Aked, in 1881, was a licensed victualler, listed at Poplar Street, Sneiton.

Ida B. Wells and Ferdinand L. Barnett married July 27, 1895. They wanted Aked to perform the ceremony. Reverend David Andrew Graham (1861–1936) of Bethel Church (AME), corner of 13th and Dearborn Streets, Chicago, performed the ceremony instead. Ferdinand’s coeditor at the Conservator, R. P. Bird, and his friend S. J. Evans stood up for him.


 * 1862: Founded by Rev. Ænos McIntosh (1820–1873).
 * 18??: First building, Jackson and Van Buren streets, a site that is currently the Chicago Financial Board of Trade
 * 1875: Third Avenue, between Taylor and 12th Streets
 * 1895–1924: Bethel AME Church (1891–1925) – 30th and Dearborn Streets
 * 2020, located at 4444 S. Michigan Ave.



Death
Norman Vincent Peale delivered the eulogy at officiated at Aked's funeral.

References to linked inline notes
Books, journals, magazines, and academic papers









































News media






 * (print). (web)..










 * (ProQuest digital)..