Don S. Browning

In Memoriam:
Don S. Browning
(January 13, 1934 – June 3, 2010)

Don S. Browning, a long-time friend and co-worker in the work of the Zygon Center, died on June 3, 2010. He served as a professor in the University of Chicago Divinity School for nearly 40 years. At the time of his death, he was the Alexander Campbell Professor Emeritus of Religious Ethics and the Social Sciences.

His prolific writings include significant interpretations of psychology and psychotherapy, as well as foundational work in practical theology, and wide-ranging discussions of religion, marriage, and family.

Browning saw the importance of the natural and social sciences, leading him to years of association with the Zygon Center and other projects in the area of religion-and-science. For the past few years, he was a member of the Templeton Foundation network for research in religion and science at the University. He initiated the nomination of the Center's founder, Ralph Wendell Burhoe, for the Templeton Prize, which was awarded in 1980. The prize money from this award is the substance of Burhoe's bequest to the Center and also to Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. He was a board member of CASIRAS (Center for the Advanced Study in Religion and Science), which is the co-sponsoring organization for both ZCRS and the Zygon journal. In May, he completed his term as co-chair of the journal's publication board. For many years, Browning was a participant in LSTC's annual Advanced Seminar in Religion and Science. He made a major presentation at this seminar on April 26.

He was a major link between the work of ZCRS and the University of Chicago. In remarks to the LSTC faculty in June 2002, Browning commended the seminary's religion-and-science activities, which, he said, are invaluable in fostering conversation between faculty from the fields of science, philosophy, and theology.

On the occasion of Don Browning's death we express our condolences to family and friends; we remember with gratitude his presence among us; and we re-affirm the conversations that he championed so brilliantly.

—Dr. Philip Hefner, Senior Fellow and Past Director, Zygon Center for Religion and Science