Rev. Dr. Walter Marshall Horton, internationally known theologian and leader in the modern Ecumenical Movement, taught at Oberlin College and Graduate School of Theology from 1925 until his retirement in 1962. Horton was born in Somerville, Massachusetts to Walter Emery Horton and Clara Powers Marshall on April 7, 1895. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1917 and the same year began graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York. On May 13, 1919, Horton was ordained a minister at the First Baptist Church in Arlington, Massachusetts; one week later, he married Lidie Loring Chick (d. 1961), a talented vocalist and music student at Boston University.

After receiving the B.D. degree from Union and the M.A. in philosophy from Columbia in 1920, Horton won the Union Philadelphia Traveling Fellowship which enabled him to pursue his theological studies at the Sorbonne and the Universities of Strasbourg and Marburg. While abroad, he perfected his knowledge of French and German and laid the foundations for a life-long interchange with continental theologians. Following his return to Union in 1922, he was appointed Instructor of Philosophy of Religion and Systematic Theology. He received the S.T.M. from Union in 1923 and the Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia in 1926.

In 1925, Horton came to Oberlin College as Associate Professor of Systematic Theology in the Graduate School of Theology with a joint appointment in the Department of Religion. The following year, the thirty-one-year-old Horton replaced retiring Henry Churchill King (1879-1934) as Fairchild Professor of Systematic Theology. Thus began a lengthy and prolific career of service both to Oberlin and to the Protestant ecumenical movement worldwide. As churchman, counselor, and teacher, Horton generously gave of his spiritual and intellectual gifts to generations of Oberlin students and colleagues. Publishers considered Horton the most versatile and popular religious writer of the day. His many books on theological topics were selected repeatedly by the Religious Book Club as "Book of the Month," thus gaining him a wide readership. Among his most popular works were Can Christianity Save Civilization? (1940), Christian Theology: An Ecumenical Approach (1955), and A Psychological Approach to Theology (1931). His articles appeared in such periodicals as The Journal of Religion, Christian Century, Advance, Theology Today, and The Ecumenical Review. Through his sermons, radio broadcasts, lectures, and frequent world travels, Horton helped to develop an ecumenical Christian theology, to foster dialogue between theological liberals and conservatives, and to promote an active role for unitive Protestantism in the post-war world. He served as consultant at ecumenical conferences in four countries from 1937 to 1959, worked with the planning groups of the World Council of Churches from their inception in 1946, and lectured in the universities of Europe and the Far East. From February to July 1952, he studied and taught at the University of Strasbourg under a Fulbright Grant and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by that institution in 1953.

After the death of his wife, Lidie, in September of 1961, Horton retired from teaching. In July 1962, he married Marie Rankin (1896-1991), Professor Emerita of Education at Oberlin. The couple spent 1962-63 in Bangalore, South India, teaching English and Theology at the United Theological College. The following year, Horton served as visiting professor at Chicago Theological Seminary. He died in Oberlin on April 22, 1966 at the age of seventy-one.