Charles (Alexander) Force Deems (December 4, 1820 – November 18, 1893) was an American Methodist minister. He was the pastor of the non-denominational Church of the Strangers in New York City from 1868 to 1893.
Early life
Deems was born in Baltimore, Maryland. As a child, he delivered lectures on temperance and on Sunday schools before he was fourteen years old. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1839.
Career
Deems taught and preached in New York City for a few months, and in 1840 took charge of the Methodist Episcopal church at Asbury, New Jersey, and removed in the next year to North Carolina, where he was General Agent for the American Bible Society. He was influential in securing from Vanderbilt the endowment of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. and a third son, Edward Mark Deems, the pastor of Sailors' Snug Harbor.
Deems died in New York on November 18, 1893. The Charles F. Deems Lectureship in Philosophy was founded in his honor in 1895 at New York University by the American Institute of Christian Philosophy. His autobiography was finished by his two sons and published posthumously.