Clippinger, Arthur R.

Arthur R. Clippinger (1878-1958) was a Church of the United Brethren in Christ minister and bishop. He was a public school teacher and a Sunday School superintendent at the age of eighteen. Clippinger enrolled in Lebanon Valley College in 1900 and graduated in 1905. While he was a student he received a ministerial license and probationary membership from the Pennsylvania Conference in 1903.

As a student he served in Greencastle and New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. In 1907 he married Ellen Mills (1882-1955) and enrolled in Yale Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1910. During his studies there he served Congregational churches.

In 1910 he became pastor of Summit Street Church in Dayton, Ohio. A year later, he was ordained in that church. Under his direction, the congregation grew, and built a new church on Dayton's Euclid Avenue, and renamed Euclid Avenue Church. In 1918, the Miami Conference elected him superintendent, and in 1921 he became a bishop of the Central Area of Ohio, where he served until retiring in 1950. He was a strong force in bringing together the Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in 1946.

Clippinger served on nearly every board or department of the various agencies of his denomination. He was a member of the Federal Council of Churches. During World War II he served on the National Chaplains' Commission. As a bishop he visited mission fields in China, Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. He was also present at the first assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948.