Ronald F. Thiemann

Profile

Ronald F. Thiemann holds the Bussey Professorship of Theology, the oldest endowed chair in theology at Harvard University. He also directs the University's Business across Religious Traditions initiative, an executive education program for business leaders. Thiemann has been at Harvard since 1986 and served as Dean of the Divinity School from 1986 until 1998. He is a Faculty Associate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

A specialist on the role of religion in public life, Professor Thiemann is the author of Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise, Constructing a Public Theology: The Church in a Pluralistic Culture, and Religion in Public Life: A Dilemma for Democracy; he is also an editor and author of Who Will Provide: The Changing Role of Religion in American Social Welfare. He is currently working on a book-length project titled "Prisoners of Conscience: Literary Artists as Social Critics." He has delivered lectures worldwide in such places as Germany, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. He holds honorary doctorates from Wabash College (Indiana) and Trinity Seminary (Ohio). In 2006 Thiemann represented the U.S. National Academies of Science on a lecture tour of universities and research centers in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2010 he was appointed the North American representative to the Lutheran Roman Catholic International Commission on Christian Unity by the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican.