John G. Stackhouse Jr.

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates John Gordon Stackhouse Jr. (born 1960) is a Canadian scholar of religion. His scholarship has been supported by research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Association of Theological Schools, and the Canadian Embassy to the United States.

Early life

Stackhouse was born in 1960 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and raised in southwestern England and northern Ontario, the eldest of four children. His father, John G. Stackhouse, was a general surgeon. His mother, A. Yvonne (Annan) Stackhouse, was a schoolteacher and later university instructor.

Stackhouse received his higher education in Canada and the United States: after a year at Mount Carmel Bible School in Edmonton, he received a BA in history from Queen's University, an MA in church history and theology from Wheaton College, and a PhD from the University of Chicago with a dissertation supervised by Martin E. Marty.

Career

Stackhouse began teaching at the International Teams School of World Missions and then Wheaton College, both in suburban Chicago, during his doctoral studies. His first full-time position was as an assistant professor of European history at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa (1987–90). From there, he went to teach Modern Christianity (history, sociology, philosophy, and theology) in the Department of Religion at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, rising to the rank of professor in 1997. One year later, he left for Regent College in Vancouver (1998–2015), where he served as the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College, in the position formerly held by J. I. Packer.

In 2015, Stackhouse headed east to become the inaugural Samuel J. Mikolaski Professor of Religious Studies at Crandall University and that university's first Dean of Faculty Development. In 2018 he received that university's Stephen and Ella Steeves Award for Excellence in Research.

Stackhouse appeared on the editorial masthead of Christianity Today from 1994 until 2018, and served as a contributing editor for Books & Culture and Christian History & Biography magazines. He is a former columnist with Christian Week and the Winnipeg Free Press, and resumed his column with Faith Today in 2009. He served as senior advisor to the Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism from its genesis in 2008 to 2010. He wrote over 200 weekly web columns for "Context: Beyond the Headlines," a Canadian Christian public affairs television program, until 2020. He writes occasionally for the Religion News Service, "Sightings" (produced at the University of Chicago Divinity School). He also serves on the editorial board of the Anglican Journal in Canada and as a Fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity in Australia.

Stackhouse's writing has ranged over theology, ethics, the history of Christianity, and both the sociology and philosophy of religion. He has published more than 30 academic journal articles, the same number of full-length chapters in academic books, and more than 900 other articles, columns, book chapters, and reviews. He has edited four books of academic theology, authored eleven books, and co-authored four more. He is listed in Canadian Who's Who, The Directory of American Scholars, and Contemporary Authors. He has given expert testimony to the Canada Revenue Agency, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and the British Columbia Supreme Court. He has lectured at Harvard's Kennedy School, Yale Divinity School, Stanford Law School, Fudan University (Shanghai), Hong Kong University, New College, Edinburgh, and the University of Otago. He has also given media interviews to CBC TV and radio, CTV, Global TV, and Vision TV in Canada; ABC TV News, NBC TV News, PBS, and Religion News Service in the US; and ABC national TV and radio in Australia—as well as to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Time, and Maclean's.

Termination for alleged sexual harassment

In November 2023, Crandall University announced that it was terminating Stackhouse's employment following a six month independent investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed students. He had faced a similar investigation at Regent College, the year before his departure from that institution. Why he left Regent is shielded by a non-disclosure agreement.

On 8 December 2023, Stackhouse sued Crandall University claiming he was wrongly terminated and that the firing damaged him. In reply, Crandall denies any and all liability to Stackhouse and requests the court dismiss his claim with costs.

Personal life

Stackhouse married in 1980 and had three children. Stackhouse later divorced and remarried.

Authored books

• John G. Stackhouse Jr. (2018). Why You're Here: Ethics for the Real World. New York: Oxford University Press. Template:ISBN.
• John G. Stackhouse Jr. (2020). Can I Believe? Christianity for the Hesitant. New York: Oxford University Press. Template:ISBN.
• John G. Stackhouse Jr. (2022). Evangelicalism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Template:ISBN.

References

Works cited

• Bob Harvey, The Future of Religion: Interviews with Christians on the Brink (Novalis, 2001).
• Canadian Who's Who (University of Toronto Press, 2019).

External links

• Cardus interview