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English priest and scholar

the baseball player

John Westerdale Bowker (born 30 July 1935) is an English Anglican priest and pioneering scholar of religious studies. A former Director of Studies and Dean of Chapel at Corpus Christi and Trinity College, Cambridge he is credited with introducing religious studies as a discipline to Cambridge University. He has been a Professor of religious studies at the universities of Cambridge, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University. He is an Honorary Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, a consultant for UNESCO, a BBC broadcaster and author and editor of numerous books.

Bowker was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, Worcester College, Oxford and Ripon Hall, Oxford. He undertook his national service with the RWAFF in northern Nigeria and then became the Henry Stevenson Fellow at the University of Sheffield in 1961. He then moved to the University of Cambridge where he was Dean of Chapel of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1962) and Assistant Lecturer (1965) and Lecturer (1970). In 1974 he was appointed Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster, and in 1984 moved back to Cambridge as Dean of Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge (1984–91) and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1984–93), also teaching, supervising and researching at the University. From 1992 to 1997 he was Gresham professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. He was appointed adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at North Carolina State University in 1986. He gave many invited lectures including the Wilde (University of Oxford), Riddell Newcastle University, Boutwood University of Cambridge, Scott Holland University of London, Bicentenary Georgetown University. He served on various commissions including the Archbishops' Commission on Doctrine (1977–86). He was appointed Vice President of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in 1980.