Gary Dorrien

The Reverend Gary Dorrien
Born	Gary John Dorrien (1952-03-21) March 21, 1952 (age 72)[1]
Nationality	American
Spouse	Brenda L. Biggs ​ ​ (m. 1979; died 2000)​
Partner	Eris McClure
Ecclesiastical career
Religion	Christianity (Anglican)
Church	Episcopal Church
Ordained	December 18, 1982 (priest)[1]
Academic background
Union Institute
Thesis	Transformations of Modernity[2] (1989)
Influences	Reinhold Niebuhr[3]
Academic work
Discipline	Religious studies theology
Sub-discipline	Christian ethics
School or tradition	Theological liberalism[4]
Institutions	Kalamazoo College Union Theological Seminary Columbia University
Notable works	The Making of American Liberal Theology (2001–2006)

Gary John Dorrien (born March 21, 1952)

Prior to joining the faculty at Union and Columbia in 2005, Dorrien taught at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where he served as Parfet Distinguished Professor and as Dean of Stetson Chapel.^[6]

An Episcopal priest, he has taught as the Paul E. Raither Distinguished Scholar at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the Horace De Y. Lentz Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Lowell Visiting Professor at Boston University School of Theology.^[7]

Dorrien is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America's Religion and Socialism Commission.^[8]

Early life

Dorrien grew up in a working class, semi-rural area of middle-Michigan, Bay County, and in nearby Midland, Michigan. His parents, Jack and Virginia Dorrien, grew up in poor areas of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.^[9] Growing up, his family was nominally Catholic.^[10] Dorrien played multiple varsity sports at Midland High School and Alma College,^[9][11] graduating summa cum laude from Alma in 1974. He earned graduate degrees from Union Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Union Graduate School in 1989.^[10] He has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from MacMurray College (DLitt, 2005), Trinity College (DD, 2010), Meadville Lombard Theological School (LHD, 2015), and Virginia Theological Seminary (DD, 2020).^[6]

Awards

Dorrien won the American Library Association's Choice Award in 2009 for his book Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition, which The Christian Century described as "magnificent, sprawling and monumental."^[12][13]

He won the Association of American Publishers' PROSE Award in 2012 for his book Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology, described as "a brilliant and much needed account of the influence of Immanuel Kant and the tradition of post-Kantian idealism on modern theology."^[14][15]

He won the

He won the Choice Award in 2018 for his book Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel, which Choice described as "intellectual history at its finest...A triumph of careful scholarship, rigorous argument, clear prose, unblinking judgments and groundbreaking conclusions…indispensable."[18]^[19]

He won the American Library Association's Choice Award for the third time in 2023 for his book American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory, described in Current Affairs as “a masterpiece. American Democratic Socialism will be the definitive history for some time.”^[20][21]

Books

• Logic and Consciousness: The Dialectics of Mind, Hastings Press, 1985.
• The Democratic Socialist Vision, Rowman & Littlefield, 1986.
• Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and the Social Order. Orbis Books (June 1990).
  ISBN 978-0-88344-659-1
• The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology, Temple University Press, 1993, 1994.
• Soul in Society: The Making and Renewal of Social Christianity, Fortress Press, 1995.
• The Word as True Myth: Interpreting Modern Theology, Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.
• The Remaking of Evangelical Theology, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.
• The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons, Westminster John Knox Press, 2000.
• The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion, 1805 - 1900 (v. 1). Westminster John Knox Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2001).
  ISBN 978-0-664-22354-0
• The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900-1950 (v. 2). Westminster John Knox Press; 1 edition (February 2003).
  ISBN 978-0-664-22355-7
• Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana. Routledge (August 31, 2004).
  ISBN 978-0-415-94980-4
• The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity: 1950-2005 (v. 3). Westminster John Knox Press (November 1, 2006).
  ISBN 978-0-664-22356-4
• Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition. Wiley-Blackwell; illustrated edition (December 22, 2008).
  ISBN 978-1-4051-8687-2
• Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice. Columbia University Press; (October 2010).
  ISBN 978-0-231-14984-6
  .
• Kantian Reason and the Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology. Wiley-Blackwell (April 17, 2012).
  ISBN 978-0470673317
• The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2012.
  ISBN 978-1-4422-1537-5
• The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel. Yale University Press, 2015.
  ISBN 978-0-300-20560-2
• Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. Yale University Press, 2017.
  ISBN 978-0-300-20561-9
• Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism. Yale University Press, 2019.
  ISBN 978-0300236026
• In a Post-Hegelian Spirit: Philosophical Theology as Idealistic Discontent. Baylor University Press, 2020.
  ISBN 978-1-4813-1159-5
• American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory. Yale University Press, 2021. ISBN 978-0300253764
• A Darkly Radiant Vision: The Black Social Gospel in the Shadow of MLK. Yale University Press, 2023. ISBN 978-0300264524
• The Spirit of American Liberal Theology: A History. Westminster John Knox, 2023. ISBN 978-0664268411