This admiration was put to the test when he denied the use of Harvard's Memorial Church to a Jewish couple who wished to be married there by a rabbi.

His reasoning, strongly supported by Harvard president Nathan Pusey, was that the church was a Christian institution, and that permitting it to be used for non-Christian activities would be to secularize it.

An intense controversy erupted involving both faculty, students, and donors to the university, ending in 1958 when Buttrick reversed his position on the ground that "The Harvard community is today a mixed society.

"[7] Buttrick was also Commentary Editor for The Interpreter's Bible, a twelve volume set of the Holy Scriptures, in the King James and Revised Standard Versions with general articles and introduction, exegesis and exposition, first published by Abingdon-Cokesbury Press in 1952.

[4] His son, David G. Buttrick (1927–2017), was a Presbyterian minister who later joined the United Church of Christ and became the Drucilla Moore Buffington Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School.