Westar Institute

Lloyd Geering was made Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, topping New Zealand’s new year’s honors list for 2001. This is the first time the strictly New Zealand honors have been given. Previously New Zealand granted Imperial Honors, under which Lloyd Geering would have been made a knight commander.Previously honored in 1988 as a Companion of the British Empire, Lloyd Geering is a public figure of considerable renown in New Zealand, where he is in constant demand as a lecturer and as a commentator on religion and related matters on both television and radio. In 1966, he published an article on “The Resurrection of Jesus” and, in 1967, another on “The Immortality of the Soul,” which together sparked a two-year public, theological controversy that culminated in charges by the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand—of which he is an ordained minister—of doctrinal error and disturbing the peace of the church. After a dramatic, two-day televised trial, the Assembly judged that no doctrinal error had been proved, dismissed the charges and declared the case closed.Live footage from the heresy trial can be viewed in the 2007 Top Shelf documentary https://westarinstitute.org/store/last-western-heretic/, available in North American format from Westar Institute.

• Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, 2001• Companion of the British Empire, 1988

• Lecturer, St. Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, 1983–• Emeritus Professor of Victoria University, 1984-• Foundation Professor of Religions Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 1971-1984• Professor of Old Testament Studies, Theological Hall, Knox College, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1960-1971• Professor of Old Testament Studies, Emmanuel College, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 1956-1960