Concept
Ian Alexander McFarland (born 1963) is an American Lutheran theologian and has since 2019 served as Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Theology at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, where he also taught from 2005 to 2015. From 2015 to 2019 he was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He holds degrees from Trinity College (Hartford), Union Theological Seminary (New York), the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the University of Cambridge and Yale University. He also taught at the University of Aberdeen from 1998 to 2005. McFarland is editor of the Scottish Journal of Theology, a former fellow of Selwyn College, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). He has served as one of the ELCA representatives on rounds 12 and 13 of the US Lutheran–Catholic Dialogue. His books include The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation (2019), From Nothing: A Theology of Creation (2014), In Adam's Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin (2010), and The Divine Image: Envisioning the Invisible God (2005). Dr. McFarland is married to oboist Ann Lillya, with whom he has two daughters. The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation. Westminster John Knox Press, 2019 From Nothing: A Theology of Creation. Westminster John Knox, 2014 Co-editor,The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology. Cambridge University Press, 2011 In Adam's Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 Editor,Creation and Humanity. Westminster John Knox Press, 2009 The Divine Image: Envisioning the Invisible God. Fortress Press, 2005 Difference and Identity: A Theological Anthropology. Pilgrim Press, 2001 Listening to the Least: Doing Theology from the Outside In. Pilgrim Press, 1998 "Sin and the Limits of Theology: A Reflection in Conversation with Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther," in International Journal of Systematic Theology 22/2 (April 2020): 147-168. "Being Perfect: A Lutheran Perspective on Moral Formation," in Studies in Christian Ethics 33/1 (2019): 15-26.