John Macquarrie, priest and theologian: born Renfrew 27 June 1919; ordained 1944 minister of the Church of Scotland; chaplain, Royal Army Chaplains Department 1945-48; Minister, St Ninian's Church, Brechin 1948-53; Lecturer in Theology, Glasgow University 1953-62; Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York 1962-70; ordained deacon 1965, priest 1965; Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Oxford University 1970-86; Canon, Christ Church, Oxford 1970-86; FBA 1984; married 1949 Jenny Fallow (née Welsh; two sons, one daughter); died Oxford 28 May 2007.
John Macquarrie was one of the leading and most prolific theologians of his generation, who sought to mediate between Christian faith and contemporary culture, particularly existentialist philosophy. He served a distinguished period as a minister and theologian in Scotland before being ordained a priest in the Anglican Communion. From 1970 until his retirement in 1986 he was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University.
The son of a shipyard pattern-maker on Clydeside, Macquarrie excelled at Renfrew High School and Paisley Grammar School and, like many in the west of Scotland, he commenced studies at Glasgow University. Graduating with a first in Mental Philosophy, he developed an interest in British idealism under C.A. Campbell, before proceeding to theological studies and ordination in the Church of Scotland. As a military chaplain in the latter stages of the Second World War, he was responsible for educational and pastoral work with German prisoners of war in Egypt. This enhanced his command of German language, thus enabling him to study the work of Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann before much of it appeared in English translation.
While ministering at St Ninian's Kirk in Brechin (1948-53), Macquarrie worked on An Existentialist Theology (1955), which became both his Glasgow doctoral thesis and first book. It was widely acclaimed for displaying the interaction of a prominent theologian and New Testament scholar (Bultmann) with a leading existentialist philosopher (Heidegger). What appeared to attract Macquarrie to this project, despite his misgivings about aspects of Bultmann's theology, was its fusion of classical Christian faith with contemporary culture, a mediating strategy that would later characterise his own work as an Anglican theologian.
One remarkable spin-off from this early research was Being and Time, the 1962 translation with Edward Robinson of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (1927), arguably the most important German philosophical text of the 20th century. A formidable task, its publication defied those sceptics who regarded Heidegger as untranslatable. Although a new and somewhat easier translation by Joan Stambaugh appeared in 1996, the Macquarrie-Robinson work continues to be recommended as the more literal rendering of the original. It has even been remarked by German students that Heidegger becomes more comprehensible when read in this translation. Plans to revise and update the translation had to be abandoned after the early death of Robinson in a road accident.
Macquarrie's first academic appointment was to a lectureship at his Alma Mater in Glasgow in 1953. By all accounts, he was a popular teacher blessed with a gift of clarity, a scholarly thoroughness, and an urbane, unpretentious style that won him the lasting appreciation of his students. Last year, he and his wife Jenny attended the 150th anniversary celebrations of Trinity College, Glasgow, and were greeted affectionately by his pupils of that era.
Sensing that advancement in Glasgow was unlikely, given that the chair-holders Ian Henderson and Ronald Gregor Smith were in their prime - ironically, both were to die prematurely in the 1960s - Macquarrie departed for a senior post at Union Theological Seminary, New York in 1962. This was to bring him into closer contact with a range of American scholars, during which time he maintained a steady output of scholarly writing.
While in New York he was ordained a priest of the Episcopal Church of the USA. In retrospect, this was not a decision that surprised those who knew him. Macquarrie's theological and liturgical affinities did not lie naturally within the Reformed tradition - his eirenic style does not appear to have extended to his reading of Calvin - and he found in Anglicanism a way of reconnecting with his ancestral Celtic roots. (His paternal grandfather had been a Gael.)
Written while in New York, one of his most notable works, The Principles of Christian Theology (1966) aroused much scholarly comment. Here Macquarrie sought to develop a doctrine of God around the Heideggerian notion of Being. His work stands out as a rare attempt within Anglican theology at that time to construct an entire systematic theology. Questions arose about the adequacy of this conceptuality for the standard claims of Christian trinitarian theism, but Macquarrie would maintain in mediating fashion that God should be characterised neither as personal nor impersonal but as supra-personal, an expression earlier favoured by C.A. Campbell.
In 1970, Macquarrie was appointed to the Lady Margaret Chair in Oxford in succession to F.L. Cross; as Canon Professor he also served at the cathedral of Christ Church and resided with his family within the college precincts. His Oxford years were marked by steady scholarly output, perhaps most notably his two-volume University of St Andrews Gifford Lectures, In Search of Humanity (1982) and In Search of Deity (1984). Throughout this period, he became established as one of the leading theologians of the English-speaking world. Translated into several languages, his books exercised an international influence, not least in China.
During his time in Oxford, his work also reflected a closer and most positive engagement with the doctrinal tenets of Christian orthodoxy. Significantly and somewhat surprisingly given his earlier reception of Bultmann, he was one of the leading critics of The Myth of God Incarnate (1977), a controversial collection of essays to which his Christ Church colleague Maurice Wiles had contributed and which argued for a merely symbolic reading of the classical idea of incarnation. Macquarrie would later produce Jesus Christ in Modern Thought (1990), a volume revealing an impressive command of New Testament scholarship and historical theology.
John Macquarrie - or Ian, as he was known to his family and friends - was a patient and quietly methodical scholar. Widely read and eager to perceive something of value in almost all positions, he was difficult to label and never identified with any theological party, fashion or network.
Described as "an existentialist without angst", he maintained his early urbane style in lectures and seminars, his west-of-Scotland accent never suffering modification. Several generations of graduate students benefited from his wise supervision. He retired from his Oxford chair in 1986, to be succeeded by Rowan Williams, and continued a flow of writings from his home in Headington. Many of these tackled particular doctrinal themes, including church, sacraments, ministry and mariology.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1984, delivered lecture series in several continents and received a host of honorary degrees. Various studies of Macquarrie's work have appeared, including Being and Truth, a Festschrift edited by his former pupils Alistair Kee and Eugene Long in 1986. Last year a second Festschrift, edited by Robert Morgan, In Search of Deity and Humanity, celebrated half a century of Macquarrie's publishing with SCM Press, this latter volume affording him much pleasure in his final months.
David Fergusson
John Macquarrie is the only clergyman of the Church of England who was able to preach to us in Scottish Gaelic at our Presbyterian services at the Crown Court Church of Scotland in London, writes Norman MacLeod. He last preached for us in Crown Court Church, where we hold our Quarterly Gaelic Service, on 22 May 2005
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