SHELTON, ARTHUR EDWIN, 1922-1993.
Sermons, 1954-1965 (bulk 1958-1965).

MANUSCRIPT NUMBER 160

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REPRODUCTION: All requests subject to limitations noted in departmental policies on reproduction.

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CITATION:  Arthur Edwin Shelton Sermons, MSS 160, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University. 

Arthur Edwin Shelton was born on May 29, 1922.  He received a Bachelor of Arts from Emory and Henry College in 1943, a Bachelor of Divinity from Candler School of Theology, Emory University, in 1946, and a Doctor of Theology from Boston University School of Theology in 1950.  Shelton served as a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve from ca. 1948-1966.  He served as a pastor in the Virginia conference of the Methodist Church from 1953 through 1965.   After leaving the pastorate in 1966, Shelton taught sociology at Clafflin College in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., and Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C..  He died December 9, 1993.

This collection consists primarily of sermons preached from 1954 through 1965.  The bulk of the sermons were preached from July 1958 - June 1965 during the time that Shelton was pastor at Centenary (1958-1961), Blacksburg (1961-1962), Norview (1962-1963), and Wesley Memorial (1963-1965) Methodist churches in the Virginia Annual Conference.  Many of the sermons were preached more than once. Of special interest are sermons addressing the church's role in the civil rights movement and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Included in the collection are copies of devotional messages presented twice daily on radio station WEER in Warrenton, Virginia from November 1958 through June 1959, and a copy of Shelton's doctoral dissertation, The Methodist Church and Industrial Workers in the Southern Soft Coal Fields.  Also included is a copy of the Candler thesis written by Shelton's father, Floyd Bunyan Shelton, entitled An Investigation of the Social Life of a West Virginia Coal Mining Field.

Arranged alphabetically by title and, thereunder, chronologically.

Box        Description
1             Sermons A-J

2             Sermons L-P

3             Sermons Q-Z
               Untitled sermon manuscripts
               Poems

4             Dissertation
               Thesis - Floyd Bunyan Shelton (father of Arthur Edwin)
               Radio devotional messages