John Macquarrie 1919–2007

John Macquarrie (1919–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, was the foremost Anglican systematic theologian of the twentieth century. His many books cover a wide range of topics, from studies of existentialist philosophy to expositions of systematic Christian theology, writings on mysticism and world religion, and analyses of ethical thought. Macquarrie was always a theologian of the church, using a philosophical vocabulary that united philosophical idealism, existentialism, and Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy in an original and fruitful way. His masterpiece was the 1966 Principles of Christian Theology, which works through almost every aspect of Christian doctrine in the light of the concepts of human nature and of God that he had forged from idealism, from Martin Heidegger, and from an increasingly sacramental and mystical approach to Christian faith. In 1970, Macquarrie was offered, without his prior knowledge, the Lady Margaret Chair of Divinity at Christ Church, University of Oxford. He received various honours that testify to the high regard in which he was held both in America and in Britain.