John Baillie and Donald Baillie

John and Donald Baillie were theologians and churchmen in the Scottish Reformed tradition, active and widely influential in Britain and America in the first half of the twentieth century. Together with American colleagues Reinhold Niebuhr and Pitney Van Dusen they developed what they regarded as a liberal orthodox theology, mediating between Barthian theology and more distinctively liberal traditions. Characteristic works included John Baillie’s Gifford Lectures, The Sense of the Presence of God, Donald Baillie’s God Was in Christ, and perhaps most significantly John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer, which sold millions of copies and is still in print. Both were much involved with ecumenical issues and in the World Council of Churches.