Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie (2 October 1921 – 11 July 2000) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991. He was born in Great Crosby, Merseyside, in England, and was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School, Crosby, before going up to Brasenose College of Oxford University. He earned a commission in the Scots Guard during World War II, serving as a tank commander and earning the Military Cross for bravery. On his return to Oxford, he took first class honors in Greats. Subsequently, he studied for ordination at Westcott House at Cambridge University and was ordained in the Diocese of Newcastle in 1950, serving as curate in the parish of All Saints in Newcastle upon Tyne in the suburb of Grosforth. In 1952 he was invited to return to Westcott House as Chaplain and subsequently Vice-Principal and in 1956 was elected Fellow and Dean of Trinity Hall of Cambridge University. Four years later, he became Principal of Cuddesdon (theological seminary), near Oxford, and ten years later was made Bishop of St. Albans. On 25 March 1980, he was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury. In response to a request from the Graduate Theological Foundation, Lord Runcie appointed Bishop John Tinsley of the Diocese of Bristol, UK, to serve as the official representative of the Church of England on behalf of the Archbishop in participating in the launching of a doctoral program for Anglican and Catholic priests. For this and many subsequent considerations, Lord Runcie was made Honorary Fellow of the GTF. Lord Runcie retired as Archbishop of Canterbury on 31 January 1991, and soon thereafter was created a life peer, as Baron Runcie, of Cuddesdon in the County of Oxfordshire, enabling him to remain in the House of Lords where he had previously sat as a Lord Spiritual. He died at St. Albans on 11 July 2000, and was buried at St. Albans Cathedral. 
Ernest John Tinsley (22 March 1919 – 20 July 1992) was Bishop of Bristol (UK) from 1976 to 1985. The son of a Lancashire farmer, he was educated at Durham University and was ordained an Anglican priest in the Church of England in 1943, serving curacies in Durham and South Westoe. Subsequently, he was Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Theology at Hull University, Examining Chaplain to the Archbishop of York and to the Bishop of Sheffield, being made Professor of Theology at Leeds University in 1962 where he was made Dean of the Faculty of Arts three years later. He was an Honorary Canon of Ripon Cathedral and was consecrated Bishop of Bristol in 1976 where he served until his retirement in 1985. Bishop Tinsley also served as Special Lecturer in Theology at Bristol University, was the Hulsean Preacher at Cambridge University in 1982, and the Bishop John Prideaux Lecturer at Exeter University. A prolific writer, his books include The Imitation of God in Christ, The Gospel According to Luke, Tragedy, Irony and Faith, and his pastoral letters as Bishop of Bristol titled Tell it Slant (Pastoral Letters from the Bishop). In 1982 and in response to an invitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury to be the Archbishop’s representative to the Graduate Theological Foundation, Bishop Tinsley presented papers on behalf of the Archbishop at the inaugural ceremony of the commencing of the doctoral program for Anglican and Catholic priests in 1982 of the GTF hosted at Notre Dame, Indiana. Bishop Tinsley was made a member of the Board of Directors and was appointed Professor of Theology, an appointment he held until his death in 1992. On the occasion of his giving the 1984 Convocation Lecture, the GTF awarded him the Doctor of Divinity honoris causa and made him a Fellow of the institution. He was married to Marjorie Dixon from 1947 until her death in 1977.
Krister Stendahl (21 April 1921 – 15 April 2008)was a Swedish theologian and New Testament scholar, Bishop of Stockholm in the Church of Sweden, and distinguished member of the faculty of divinity at Harvard University. Stendahl was born in Stockholm and educated at Uppsala University where he earned a Ph.D. in New Testament with a thesis titled, “The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament” in 1954. He served as a parish priest and then as chaplain at Uppsala University. Based on the scholarship of his 1954 Ph.D. thesis, he was invited to become Professor of New Testament at The Divinity School of Harvard University at the initiative of President Nathan Pusey, who was committed to re-building the Divinity School to a world class institution of theological scholarship. He served on the Divinity School faculty from 1954 to 1979, and as Dean of the Divinity School from 1968 to 1979. In 1984, Stendahl was elected Bishop of Stockholm in the Church of Sweden where he served for four years before returning to Harvard University after his retirement in 1989 where he was appointed the Mellon Professor of Divinity Emeritus. In 1987, Stendahl was made an Honorary Fellow of the Graduate Theological Foundation, delivering the Convocation Address. In 1988, following his departure from Sweden and prior to his assuming the professorship at Harvard University, he was appointed Director of the Center for Religious Pluralism at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. That same year he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal from the Association of Theological Schools. A prolific writer, his most famous books include The Bible and the Role of Women, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, and Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
John Macquarrie (27 June 1919 – 28 May 2007) was a Scottish theologian and philosopher and the author of many books including the internationally acclaimed Principles of Christian Theology (1966) which established his career. Born in Renfrew, Scotland, to a devout Presbyterian family with strong Gaelic roots, he was educated at Paisley Grammar School and read philosophy at the University of Glasgow where he took the M.A., B.D., Ph.D., and D.Litt.. He was enlisted in the British Army serving from1943 to 1948 and after World War II was awarded the Territorial Decoration. Having served as a military chaplain, he was ordained in the Church of Scotland and subsequently served as pastor at St. Ninian’s Church in Brechin. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Glasgow while serving as lecturer in systematic theology at Trinity College, Glasgow. In 1962, he was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. During this time he became a member of the Episcopal Church while retaining membership in the Church of Scotland out of respect for his family tradition. In 1965, he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and five years later was appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford and Canon Residentiary of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where he served from 1970 to1986, being then appointed Professor and Canon Emeritus. From 1996 until his death he was the Martin Heidegger Professor of Philosophical Theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation from which he had received the Doctor of Divinity honoris causa. He was made a Fellow of the GTF which now houses his personal library. In 1984 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and delivered the Gifford Lectures for 1983-84 on the topic and subsequent book entitled, In Search of Deity. Of his many books, one of his latest was his autobiographical reflections edited by John H. Morgan, titled, On Being a Theologian: Reflections at Eighty (1999).
John Charles Fenton (5 June 1921 – 27 December 2008) was a biblical scholar, teacher, Anglican priest, and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, from 1978 to 1991. Born in Liverpool to a poor parish vicar, he attended St. Edward’s School in Oxford. He holds the B.A., M.A., and B.D. from Queen’s College of Oxford University and was ordained to the priesthood in 1945. Canon Fenton was named assistant curate at All Saints in Hindley, Wigan, and subsequently made Chaplain of Lichfield Theological College where he served in that capacity from 1958 to 1965, at which time he was appointed Principal of St. Chad’s College of Durham University (1965-1978), which was originally an Anglican seminary but under his administration became a constituent college of the University. Upon leaving St. Chad’s, he was appointed Canon of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford where retired in 1991, being then made Canon Emeritus. In 1996, he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Christian Scriptures at the Graduate Theological Foundation, an appointment he held until his death. Married the year of his ordination to the priesthood to Mary Hamilton Ingoldby with whom he had two sons and two daughters. Upon her death, he later married Linda Brandham with whom he had two sons and a daughter. He was honored by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2001 with the Lambeth Doctor of Divinity in recognition of his distinguished scholarly and teaching career in Biblical studies and theology as a priest of the Church of England. A prolific writer, his books include The Passion According to John, Crucified with Christ, Saint Matthew (Pelican Commentary), Saint John (New Clarendon Bible Commentary), and Finding the Way Through John.
Edward Osborne Wilson (born 10 June 1929) is an internationally acclaimed research biologist and naturalist. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Alabama and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Living in retirement in Lexington, Massachusetts with his wife Irene, he continues to serve as Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator of Entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world’s leading authority. He is known for his scientific work in environmental studies and is the commonly acknowledged “father of sociobiology.” He is genuinely and deeply interested in the secular-religious dialogue particularly as relates to ethical issues facing the modern world. Before his retirement, he was the Joseph Pellegrina University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, in 2008 he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the Graduate Theological Foundation at which time he was awarded the Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa in recognition of his contribution to the science-religion dialogue. His many awards and honors include election as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. National Medal of Science recipient, winner of the Pulitzer Prize twice and in 1998 he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences from the American Philosophical Society. A prolific writer, some of his most internationally acclaimed books include Sociology: the New Synthesis; On Human Nature; Genes, Mind and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process; Biophilia; and The Diversity of Life and The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.
Richard Douglas Harries was born 2 June 1936 and educated at the private Wellington College and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.The Right Reverend Professor Lord Harries of Pentregarth was Bishop of Oxford, England, from 1987 until 2006. On his retirement he was made a Life Peer, (Lord Harries of Pentregarth), and he continues to be active in the House of Lords. He is Gresham Professor of Divinity (Gresham College, London) and Honorary Professor of Theology at King’s College, London. He has written widely on the interface of Christian faith and wider culture, especially in the fields of armed conflict, ethics and the arts. His books include After the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust (OUP, 2003) and The Passion in Art (Ashgate, 2004). Art and the Beauty of God (Continuum, 2000) was chosen as a book of the year by the late author Anthony Burgess in The Observer. Bishop Harries’ most recent books include The Re-enchantment of Morality (SPCK, 2008), shortlisted for the 2011 Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing, and Faith in Politics? Rediscovering the Christian roots of our political values (DLT, 2010). He edited, with Stephen Platten, Reinhold Niebuhr and Contemporary Politics: God and Power (OUP, 2010). Bishop Harries read Theology at Cambridge University, from which he holds a Master of Arts. He has an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of London as well as honorary doctorates from Oxford Brookes University (Hon. DUniv.), The Open University (Hon. DUniv.) and Huddersfield University (Hon. D. Civil Law). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of King’s College, London, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford; Selwyn College, Cambridge; The Academy of Medical Sciences; and the Institute of Biology. In 2012, Bishop Harries delivered the Archbishop Robert Runcie Lecture at the Foundation’s 50th anniversary graduation and convocation, where he was made an Honorary Fellow and awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree honoris causa.
John Moses was born in London in 1938 and educated at Ealing Grammar School; Nottingham University; Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge; and Lincoln Theological College. He is an Anglican priest who was ordained in 1964 and has held parochial, cathedral and diocesan appointments in different parts of the United Kingdom – in Bedford, Coventry, Essex and London. He retired in the summer of 2006 having spent the previous ten years as the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He described himself at that time as “a London boy who could not quite believe his luck in being asked to do the best job in the Church of England.” Other responsibilities over the years have included membership in the General Synod of the Church of England; a Visiting Fellowship at Wolfson College Cambridge; the chairmanship of the Centre for the Study of Theology at Essex University; work as a Church Commissioner; appointment as Rector of the Anglia Ruskin University; the Vice Presidency of the City of London Festival; membership in the Anglican Consultative Council and its Standing Committee; appointment as a Select Preacher at Oxford University; and, currently, Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London. Dr. Moses’ publications include books on atonement theology (The Sacrifice of God 1992); church and state (A Broad and Living Way 1995); the desert tradition of spirituality (The Desert 1997); the writings of John Donne (One Equal Light 2003); and prayer (The Language of Love 2007). He holds honorary degrees as a Doctor of the University of the Anglia Ruskin University (1997) and as a Doctor of Divinity from Nottingham University (1997). Dr. Moses was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II upon his retirement as Dean of St Paul’s. He is also a Brother of the Order of St John and an Officer of the Order of Istiqlal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He is married and he and his wife have three children and seven grandchildren. In 2010, Dr. Moses delivered the Archbishop Robert Runcie Lecture at the GTF where he was made an Honorary Fellow and awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree honoris causa.
Ewert H. Cousins was born June 23, 1927, in New Orleans and died on May 30, 2009, in Connecticut. At age eighteen he joined the Society of Jesus, and later left the Jesuits, completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham University, having previously taken the B.A. from Spring Hill College and the S.T.L. from St. Louis University. He taught in the Theology Department, becoming Professor Emeritus after 40 years there. Cousins was the General Editor of the 25 volume series, World Spirituality: an Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, and the Editorial Consultant of the series, Classics of Western Spirituality. He was a translator of Bonaventure, and author of numerous books including Christ of the 21st Century, Bonaventure and the Coincidence of Opposites, and Global Spirituality: Toward the Meeting of Mystical Paths and Editor of Hope and the Future of Man and Process Theology. A past president of the American Teilhard Association, he was a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and a member of the Advisory Board for Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. In 1982, he was named the Teilhard de Chardin Professor of Christianity Spirituality at the GTF, where he was a Fellow and senior member of the teaching faculty of the GTF from 1962 until his death.
Vincent Strudwick is Fellow and Bishop John Tinsley Professor of Anglican Theology. He studied history at Nottingham University and theology at the monastic seminary at Kelham (both in U.K.) At Kelham he was later Vice Principal and lecturer in Church History. Canon Strudwick also holds a MA (Oxford) and DipAdEd (London). In July of 2009, the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred upon him the Doctor of Divinity, a degree given on merit in recognition of Canon Strudwick’s contribution to religious, academic and public life. His research and teaching is specialized in the English Reformation and he has taught in several seminaries and universities both in the U.K. and the U.S. where he taught for the Smithsonian Institution. His final appointment in the U.K. was at Oxford University where he was Director of Theology Programmes in Continuing Education and Director, until 1999, of the University’s International Summer School, which he founded. He was sometime Associate Chaplain at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and remains a member of the Senior Common Room. After formal retirement, he still teaches for the Theology Faculty in Oxford, where he teaches a course on Anglicanism each year at St. Stephen’s House, a seminary in Oxford. In 1998, Canon Strudwick received the Doctor of Divinity honoris causa from the GTF in recognition of his invaluable service in coordinating a relationship between this institution and Oxford University. In 2000, Canon Strudwick delivered the inaugural Archbishop Robert Runcie Lecture at the GTF and in 2012 edited the ten-year collection of essays celebrating the 50th anniversary of the GTF as a memorial tribute to Lord Runcie’s contribution to the life and work of the GTF. He is an Emeritus Canon of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford and Honorary Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford.