Blackwell Reference Online

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Colin Gunton was one of the most significant voices in British systematic theology in the final three decades of the twentieth century. He grew up in Nottingham, England, studied classics and then theology at Oxford, undertaking doctoral studies under Robert Jenson, John Marsh, and John Macquarrie. His thesis on the doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth, completed in 1973, was published as Becoming and Being in 1978 ( Gunton, 2001a ). By then he had married (1966), begun to lecture in the philosophy of religion at King's College London (1969), and become a minister in the United Reformed Church (1972). He was an associate minister at Brentwood URC from 1975 until his death in 2003, became Professor of Christian Doctrine at King's College London in 1984, and served as convenor of the United Reformed Church's Doctrine and Worship Committee when it produced its new Service Book (1989). The meshing of academic and church commitments was crucial to who he was and what he understood theology to be. In 1988 he co-founded the Research Institute in Systematic Theology at King's with Christoph Schwoebel. Along with their supervision of many postgraduates at the department of theology and religious studies at King's, the Institute contributed to fostering a new confidence in the study of doctrine and systematic theology in Britain. In particular, it promoted fresh attention ... log in or subscribe to read full text