Award type:
Appointment date:
Saturday, 30 Dec 2006
Professor Lloyd Geering, born 1918, is one New Zealand’s most eminent theologians.
He was ordained as a Presbyterian Minister of the Kurow Presbyterian Parish in 1943 and served in the Opoho and St James Parishes until 1956. He was the Honorary Associate Minister of St John’s Church in Wellington from 1971 to 1983, when he resigned from the church to take up a series of academic appointments, and has been the Honorary Assistant at St Andrew’s in Wellington since 1989.
He was Professor of Old Testament Studies at the Emmanuel College in Brisbane from 1956 to 1960, Professor of Old Testament Studies at the Theological Hall of Knox College from 1960 to 1971, and was the Foundation Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington from 1971 to 1984. He was appointed Emeritus Professor at Victoria University of Wellington in 1984 and became a Lecturer at the St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society in 1983.
Professor Geering has become widely known as a columnist, writer, radio broadcaster, and television commentator. In 1966, he published the article The Resurrection of Jesus and in 1967, the article The Immortality of the Soul, which together sparked a two-year public controversy that culminated in a charge of heresy. He was tried for doctrinal error and disturbing the peace of the church at the Presbyterian Assembly in 1967, however the charges were later dismissed.
He has written several books, including God in a New World, Resurrection: a Symbol of Hope, Faith’s New Age, The World of Relation, In the World Today, Tomorrow’s God, The World to Come, Christian Faith at the Crossroads, Christianity Without God and Wrestling With God.
