Tony Lane

Professor of Historical Doctrine, Lecturer in Doctrine

Biography

Tony studied maths and theology at Oxford and Cambridge before joining the school’s faculty in 1973. He has remained here since then, apart from a year away spent teaching in Kenya and researching in the USA. He was Director of Research from 1996 to 2008, since when he has worked part-time. In 2000 he was recognised by Brunel University as Professor of Historical Theology and in 2004 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Oxford University.  

For many years Tony chaired the Tyndale Fellowship Doctrine Group and he is a member of the Presidium that runs the four-yearly International Congress on Calvin Research. 

Tony likes to travel and has worked as a computer programmer in Holland, studied in Germany and taught in Germany, Kenya, Canada, USA, Croatia, Romania, Russia, Belarus, Philippines, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Singapore. He and his wife Maggie have two married daughters and six grandchildren. 

Research Interests

Tony has supervised around 30 PhDs and has examined PhDs for various universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh. He is interested in supervising students in historical theology. His prime specialisms are Calvin and Bernard of Clairvaux, though he has supervised theses on other theologians from the Early Church, the Middle Ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as modern theologians including Jürgen Moltmann. Theological themes that are of especial interest to him are Scripture and tradition, sin and grace, justification, sacraments and Catholic-Protestant dialogue. 

Select Publications

John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Continuum, 1999) — followed by John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers, vol. 2 (Brill, 2025) 

  • Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue (Continuum, 2002)
  • Lion Christian Classics Collection (LION, 2004)
  • Concise History of Christian Thought (Continuum, 2006)
  • Reader’s Guide to Calvin’s Institutes (Baker, 2009)
  • Bernard of Clairvaux: Theologian of the Cross (Cistercian Publications, 2013)
  • Exploring Christian Doctrine (SPCK, 2013
  • Regensburg Article 5 on Justification: Inconsistent Patchwork or Substance of True Doctrine? (OUP, 2019)
  • Sin and Grace (IVP, 2020) Sin and Grace (IVP, 2020)
  • Editor of new translation of Calvin’s Institutes to be published in a few years

  • Professor of Historical Theology