Richard Heitzenrater

William Kellon Quick Professor Emeritus of Church History and Wesley Studies

Download Curriculum Vitae

Office


Duke Divinity School
Box 90968
Durham, NC 27708-0968

Degrees

A.B., B.D., Ph.D, Duke University

Best known for "breaking the code" of Wesley's personal diaries, Heitzenrater is General Editor of the Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, which includes his work in the seven volumes of Journals and Diaries. During 2002-03, he was a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology.

Professor Heitzenrater has lectured at many distinguished institutions across North America as well as Great Britain, Sweden, Russia, Austria, Bulgaria, Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Brazil. He has published 16 books, including Wesley and the People Called Methodists, now translated into six languages. He has contributed 25 chapters to other books and published more than 20 major scholarly articles.

Heitzenrater chaired the writing committee of the Committee on Our Theological Task that wrote the present doctrinal statement in Part II of The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church. He was recently senior co-editor of Church History, the journal of the American Society of Church History, and presently co-chairs the Wesley Studies Group of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. He has been a clergy member of the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church for more than 45 years.

Selected Publications

  • Wesley and the People Called Methodists
  • The Elusive Mr. Wesley
  • The Poor and the People Called Methodists
  • Mirror and Memory: Reflections on Early Methodism
  • John Wesley's Sermons: An Anthology (with Albert C. Outler)