Daniel Seeger
Daniel Andrew ("Dan") Seeger is a retired administrator of Friends' (Quaker) organizations and a writer on Friends' religion and social issues. He was earlier a defendant in a notable case on conscription of pacifists that was decided by the Supreme Court.[1]
Seeger had come from a Roman Catholic background, been heavily influenced by Quaker ideas, and volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). In 1958, he was denied conscientious-objector status under the 1948 military draft law, on grounds that his religious beliefs did not constitute "belief in a Supreme Being"; he was eventually ordered to enter the armed forces, and convicted of draft refusal. In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Seeger that his conviction was mistaken, because Congress, in its statutory language, "did not intend" using "the usual understanding" of "Supreme Being", but rather an interpretation that extended to Seeger's "compulsion" to "goodness".
Seeger made a career in the administration of the AFSC. In the 1980s and 90s he wrote four pamphlets[2] for publication by the Quaker Universalist Fellowship, and two[3] by the Quaker study-center publisher Pendle Hill. He retired in September 2000 from the role of executive director of Pendle Hill.
On April 1, 2010, Seeger stepped into the role of Interim General Secretary at the AFSC, pending the conclusion of the search for a permanent General Secretary, following the resignation of Mary Ellen McNish on March 31.
Further reading
[edit | edit source]- In stillness there is fullness: a peacemaker's harvest: essays and reflections in honor of Daniel A. Seeger's four decades of Quaker service; edited by Peter Bien and Chuck Fager, Belfonte, Pennsylvania, Kimo Press, Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
Related Links
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Dan Seeger Archived 2019-04-19 at the Wayback Machine (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, n.d.), as accessed January 22, 2019.
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Quaker Universalist Fellowship pamphlets
Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).