John Robinson (bishop of Woolwich)

John Robinson (bishop Of Woolwich)

John Arthur Thomas Robinson (1919 in Canterbury, England – 5 December 1983 at Cambridge) was a New Testament scholar, author and a former Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, England. He was a lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later Dean of Trinity College until his death in 1983 from cancer. Robinson was considered a major force in shaping liberal Christian theology. Along with Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, he spearheaded the field of secular theology and, like William Barclay, he was a believer in universal salvation.

His book Honest to God caused controversy, as it called on Christians to view God as the "Ground of Being" rather than as a supernatural being "out there," a view that was elaborated in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas. In his later books, he championed early dates and apostolic authorship for the gospels, largely without success.