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]
Born on March 21, 1952,[2][9] 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.[10] Growing up, his family was nominally Catholic.[11] Dorrien played multiple varsity sports at Midland High School and Alma College,[10][12] 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.[11] He has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from MacMurray College (DLitt, 2005), Trinity College (DD, 2010), Meadville Lombard Theological School (LHD, 2015), Virginia Theological Seminary (DD, 2020), and Wake Forest University (DD, 2024).[6][13]
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."[14][15]
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."[16][17]
He won the Grawemeyer Award in 2017 for his book The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel, described by theologian William Stacey Johnson as, "a magisterial treatment of a neglected stream of American religious history presented by one of this generation's premiere interpreters of modern religious thought performing at the top of his game."[18][19]
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."[20][21]
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.”[22][23]
He won the Gandhi King Mandela Peace Prize in 2024 at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; the prize citation commended his “distinguished teaching and magisterial, rigorous, monumental, and definitive scholarship that counter and disrupt White racist theology and ethical inquiry by centering the truths of Black life, Black Christian witness, and political imagination.”[24][25]
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). ISBN978-0-88344-659-1
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). ISBN978-0-664-22354-0
The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900-1950 (v. 2). Westminster John Knox Press; 1 edition (February 2003). ISBN978-0-664-22355-7
Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana. Routledge (August 31, 2004). ISBN978-0-415-94980-4
The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity: 1950-2005 (v. 3). Westminster John Knox Press (November 1, 2006). ISBN978-0-664-22356-4
Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition. Wiley-Blackwell; illustrated edition (December 22, 2008). ISBN978-1-4051-8687-2
Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice. Columbia University Press; (October 2010). ISBN978-0-231-14984-6.
Kantian Reason and the Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology. Wiley-Blackwell (April 17, 2012). ISBN978-0470673317
The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2012. ISBN978-1-4422-1537-5
The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel. Yale University Press, 2015. ISBN978-0-300-20560-2
Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. Yale University Press, 2017. ISBN978-0-300-20561-9
Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism. Yale University Press, 2019. ISBN978-0300236026
In a Post-Hegelian Spirit: Philosophical Theology as Idealistic Discontent. Baylor University Press, 2020. ISBN978-1-4813-1159-5
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
Anglican Identities: Logos Idealism, Imperial Whiteness, Commonweal Ecumenism, Baylor University Press, 2024, ISBN 9781481320948
Over from Union Road: My Christian-Left-Intellectual Life, Baylor University Press, 2024, ISBN978-1-4813-2241-6
^Dorrien, Gary John (1989). Transformations of Modernity: The Common Good in Social and Theological Theory (PhD thesis). Union Institute. OCLC984155347.
^ abDorrien, Gary (2015). The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. ix–x. ISBN9780300205602.
^Dorrien, Gary (March 16, 2015). Amazon.com: Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology (9781119016540): Gary Dorrien: Books. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-1119016540.
