Alec Ryrie

{{short description|English historian of Protestant Christianity}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = Alec Ryrie

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA|size=100%}}

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| birth_name = Alexander Gray Ryrie

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1971|08|20|df=yes}}

| birth_place = London, England

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| spouse = {{marriage|Victoria Ryrie|1995}}

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| alma_mater = {{ubl | Trinity Hall, Cambridge | University of St Andrews | St Cross College, Oxford}}

| thesis_title = English Evangelical Reformers in the Last Years of Henry VIII

| thesis_year = 2000

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| doctoral_advisor = Diarmaid MacCulloch

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| discipline = History

| sub_discipline = {{hlist|Reformation|History of Christianity}}

| workplaces = University of Birmingham
Durham University

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}}

Alexander Gray RyrieThe Cambridge University List of Members up to 31 July 1996 (Supplement), University of Cambridge, 1996, p. 83 {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA}} (born 20 August 1971) is a British historian of Protestant Christianity, specializing in the history of England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.{{cite web|url=https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/28-july/books-arts/book-reviews/subtitles-sects-and-slaves|title=Protestants by Alec Ryrie|website=Churchtimes.co.uk|accessdate=31 January 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://www.dur.ac.uk/theology.religion/staff/profile/?id=5066|title=Professor A Ryrie - Durham University|website=Dur.ac.uk|accessdate=31 January 2019}} He was Professor of Divinity at Gresham College from 2018 to 2022.{{cite web|url=https://www.dur.ac.uk/theology.religion/about/news/?itemno=34847|title=Alec Ryrie appointed to Divinity Professorship at Gresham College - Durham University|website=Dur.ac.uk|accessdate=31 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190420090922/https://www.dur.ac.uk/theology.religion/about/news/?itemno=34847|archive-date=20 April 2019}} He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2019.

Biography

Ryrie was born in London, and raised in Washington, DC.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VwzsDAAAQBAJ|title=Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World|first=Alec|last=Ryrie|date=4 April 2017|publisher=Penguin|isbn=9780735222816|accessdate=31 January 2019|via=Google Books}} After teaching for a year at a school in rural Zimbabwe,{{cite web|url=https://beta.prx.org/stories/209309|title=PRX|website=Beta.prx.org|access-date=31 January 2019}}{{cite web|url=http://chqdaily.com/2017/06/alec-ryrie-tells-story-of-protestantism-through-individuals/|title=Alec Ryrie tells story of Protestantism through individuals|first=Delaney Van|last=Wey|date=29 June 2017|website=Chqdaily.com|access-date=31 January 2019}} Ryrie read history as an undergraduate at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA 1993, MA 1997), completed a master's in Reformation studies at the University of St Andrews, and in 2000 took a DPhil in theology at St Cross College, Oxford.{{cite web|url=https://www.gresham.ac.uk/professors-and-speakers/professor-alec-ryrie|title=Professor Alec Ryrie|website=Gresham.ac.uk|access-date=31 January 2019}} His doctoral work, examining how early English evangelical reformers operated within the political atmosphere of Henry VIII's reign, was published as The Gospel and Henry VIII. His supervisor was Diarmaid MacCulloch.{{cite book |last1=Ryrie |first1=Alec |title=The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early English Reformation |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780521823432 |page=xiv}}

Ryrie lives in the Pennines with his wife Victoria and their two children, Ben and Adam. He has been a reader in the Church of England since 1997, and is licensed to the parish of Shotley St John in the diocese of Newcastle.

Career

From 1999 to 2006, he taught in the Department of Modern History at the University of Birmingham, and is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, where he has worked since 2007. From 2012 to 2015 he was head of the Department of Theology and Religion.{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/protestants-the-radicals-who-made-the-modern-world-by-alec-ryrie-25kl005n0|title=Protestants: The Radicals Who Made the Modern World by Alec Ryrie|first=Gerard|last=DeGroot|date=25 March 2017|access-date=31 January 2019|website=The Times}} He completed a three-year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship in 2018.

A Fellow of the Ecclesiastical History Society (President, 2019–21), Ryrie is co-editor of The Journal of Ecclesiastical History and president of the Church of England Record Society. From 2018-22, he was Gresham Professor of Divinity, having been visiting professor in the History of Religion at Gresham College from 2015 to 2017.

Between 2015 and 2022, Ryrie delivered 32 lectures at Gresham College, as visiting professor in the History of Religion and Gresham Professor of Divinity. In 2022, he gave the Bampton Lectures, on "The age of Hitler, and how we can escape it."{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnob1qOTq38 | title=Bampton Lectures 2022 - Lecture 3 | website=YouTube | date=29 May 2022 }} In 2024 he delivered the Ford Lectures at Oxford University on "The World's Reformation".

Works

The English Reformation: A Very Brief History (2020)
Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt (2019)
Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World (2017)
Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (2013)
The Age of Reformation: The Tudor and Stewart Realms 1485-1603 (2009)
The Sorcerer's Tale: Faith and Fraud in Tudor England (2008)
The Origins of the Scottish Reformation (2006)
The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early English Reformation (2003)