Macquarrie, the Rev. John

▪ 2008

      British theologian

born June 27, 1919, Renfrew, Scot.

died May 28, 2007, Oxford, Eng.

melded existential philosophy with orthodox Christian thought to create a structural and systematic analysis of Christian theology. Macquarrie studied philosophy (M.A., 1940) and divinity (B.D., 1943) at the University of Glasgow, Scot. He was ordained in 1945, and after serving as an army chaplain (1945–48) and parish minister (1948–53), he returned to Glasgow to complete his Ph.D. (1954). He remained there on the faculty until 1962, when he was named a professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. While in the U.S., Macquarrie converted from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland to the Episcopal Church (part of the Anglican Communion), and in 1965 he was ordained an Episcopal priest. He served as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and canon of Christ Church, Oxford (1970–86), before taking the post of Martin Heidegger Professor of Philosophical Theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation in South Bend, Ind., where the John Macquarrie Library was established in early 2007. Macquarrie's seminal works included his doctoral dissertation, An Existentialist Theology: A Comparison of Heidegger and Bultmann (1955; reprinted 1979); the expansive Twentieth Century Religious Thought: The Frontiers of Philosophy and Theology (1963; rev. 1981); Studies in Christian Existentialism (1965); and Principles of Christian Theology (1966; rev. 1979). He also translated Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1962; reissued 1973).

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