From their inception in the thirteenth century, universities have offered graduate level research in theology, alongside medicine and law, pursuant to undergraduate studies in the arts and sciences. Theology continues to be pursued with vigour at McGill in the School of Religious Studies. It is taught at both the undergraduate and the graduate level, not only in the broad sense in which it embraces fields of study and of professional interest treated elsewhere in these pages, but also as a distinct discipline in its own right.
Chair of Systematic Theology
One of the foundational chairs of the original Faculty of Divinity was devoted to that discipline, systematic and historical theology, and has been ever since. This chair functions in close collaboration with the five others.
The original occupant of the theology chair was Gerald R. Cragg, who served transitionally in that capacity while the new faculty was being founded in 1948 with the support of Principal Cyril James. Cragg would go on to produce lasting works on the relation between religion and reason, and between freedom and authority, as perceived in the volatile period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first permanent occupant of the chair was Robert H. L. Slater, who served from 1949 to 1958, under the deanship of J. S. Thompson, FRSC (himself, inter alia, a theologian). Professor Slater went on to found the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard. He was followed at McGill by Eric George Jay, formerly Senior Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who held the chair from 1958 to 1975, serving also as Dean from1964 to 1970. Professor Jay produced works on a great variety of subjects, from Greek grammar to the reliablity of the Gospels to commentaries on treatises by Origen and Aquinas.
In 1975 Douglas John Hall assumed the chair, which he held until he became professor emeritus in 1995. Professor Hall, CM, while carrying on the tradition of historically and culturally and contextually engaged scholarship, brought out the critical and systematic dimension of the chair with remarkable success. Like his predecessors, he lectured widely in North America, Europe and Asia and served extensively in ecumenical circles. Seeking a new path for Christian thought and life in the evolving post-Christendom era, he not only published prolifically but produced a three-volume systematic theology for the North American context.
Douglas Bryce Farrow, the current holder of the chair, came to McGill from a post at King’s College London, as had Eric Jay decades earlier. Joining the Faculty in 1997, he has laboured to extend its legacy through public lecturing and writings that probe the interface between church and state, religion and society, theology and the university itself, while also producing substantive historical and constructive scholarship and biblical commentary. Professor Farrow’s work at the borders of Catholic and Protestant thought has introduced a new dimension to that legacy.
Several others have taught theology at McGill over the decades, working closely with the foundational chairs. Donald Neil MacMillan, for example, and former college principals such as William Klempa and John Simons, might be mentioned; in theological ethics, professors Gregory Baum and Karen Lebacqz likewise. Dr Pablo Irizar, director of the Newman Centre, has lately brought new expertise in mediaeval theology. Professors Fiasse and Cere supply help in ethics and political thought, as do professors Henderson, Kirkpatrick, Salvatore, and Wendt in their own various fields.
Faculty
Douglas Bryce Farrow, the current holder of the chair, came to McGill from a post at King’s College London, as had Eric Jay decades earlier. Joining the Faculty in 1997, he has laboured to extend its legacy through public lecturing and writings that probe the interface between church and state, religion and society, theology and the university itself, while also producing substantive historical and constructive scholarship and biblical commentary. Professor Farrow’s work at the borders of Catholic and Protestant thought has introduced a new dimension to that legacy.
Committee in Theology
The Committee in Theology presently consists of professors Douglas Farrow, Garth Green (philosophical theology) and Torrance Kirby (ecclesiastical history). Expansion is anticipated as new appointments are made.
The committee conducts and supervises research from the apostolic and early patristic period to the present, taking account of Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Enlightenment, and Postmodern developments in the history of ideas and institutions.
Special attention is given to trinitarian theology through classical sources in the patristic and mediaeval periods, to Reformation theology both Continental and English, and to modern theology in its political, ethical, and cultural dimensions. Course work and comprehensive examinations include historical and systematic studies of major figures and motifs, as well as specialized contemporary topics. Competence in primary texts is prized along with interdisciplinary expertise.
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Graduate Students
PhD dissertations
Nathan Adams (2020-), PhD student, Religious Studies; MA Theology Acadia University, 2018. School of Religious Studies Entrance Fellowship (2020). Nathan is studying Christian theology broadly and, more specifically, the nature of Christ's atonement. He hopes to contribute to current debates about the atonement by a resourcement of Irenaeus of Lyons' recapitulation position.
Gregory Doyle Gregory of Nyssa’s Doctrine of Providence
Shaun Retallick (2013-) in Christian Thought and History. Shaun works in historical theology and Church history, with particular interests in political theology, ecclesiology, and the Roman papacy. His dissertation investigates the impact of the Via moderna school of thought on the political theology of Jacques Almain (d. 1515), a medieval philosopher-theologian and conciliarist.
Ryan Scruggs Giving Gifts to the One Who Needs Nothing: Irenaeus on Creation, Covenant, and the Economy of Divine-Human Reciprocity
Completed Degrees
Successfully completed PhDs
Toru Asakawa , Kitamori Kazo: Theologian of the Pain of God (2003)
Richard Bernier, The Sacrament of Confirmation in Roman Catholic Tradition: A History of Interpretations and a Proposal for Integration (2014)
Roland De Vries, Towards a Theological Ethics of Sexual Difference: Luce Irigaray and Søren Kierkegaard on mediation and intersubjectivity between man and woman (2008 Principal’s Dissertation Award); published as Becoming Two in Love: Kierkegaard, Irigaray, and the Ethics of Sexual Difference (Wipf & Stock 2013)
David Guretzki ,The Development and Systematic Function of the Filioque in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (2006; SSHRC funded and nominated for the Dissertation Awards competition); published as Karl Barth and the Filioque (Ashgate 2009)
Adrian Langdon, God the Eternal Contemporary: Trinitarian Supratemporality in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (2009); published as God the Eternal Contemporary: Trinity, Eternity, and Time in Karl Barth (Wipf & Stock 2012)
Stanley MacLean, The Eschatological Orientation in the Early Theology of T. F. Torrance 1939-1963 (2008); published as Resurrection, Apocalypse, and the Kingdom of Christ: The Eschatology of Thomas F. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Se 2012)
Rachel Reesor-Taylor , Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo for a Peace Theology: On the compatibility of Non-violence and Sacrificial Atonement.’ Rachel Reesor-Taylor (2007)
Todd Statham, Dogma and History in Victorian Scotland (2011)
Tsoncho Tsonchev Person and Communion: The Political Theology of Nikolai Berdyaev (2020)
Successfully completed MAs supervised
Anastassy Brandon Gallaher, The Christocentric Theodicy of St Irenaeus of Lyons (2001; SSHRC)
Meredith Humphrey Burnett, Corporeal Theology and the Politics of Pregnancy: Abortion and the Pregnant Body in Eastern Christian Thought (2007; FQRSC, Dean’s Honour List)
Rowshan Nemazee, Ave crux, spes unica: The Theology of the Cross in the Life and Works of Edith Stein (2000)