Ian Oswald Guinness (born September 30, 1941) is an English author, theologian and social critic now based in Fairfax County, Virginia; he has lived in the United States since 1984.

Early life and education

Born on 30 September 1941 in Hsiang Cheng, China, to medical missionaries working there, Guinness is of Irish descent and the great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer. He returned to England in 1951 for secondary school and eventual college. Guinness received a Bachelor of Divinity degree (honours) from the University of London in 1966 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oriel College, Oxford, in 1981, where he studied under Peter L. Berger. According to his website, Os has written or edited more than 30 books that offer insight into current cultural, political, and social contexts.

Career

In the late 1960s, Guinness was a leader at the L'Abri community in Switzerland and, after Oxford, a freelance reporter for the BBC. He wrote his first book, The Dust of Death, in 1973; John Frame called it "a wonderfully erudite and persuasive critique of the western culture of the late 1960s from a thoughtful, balanced Christian perspective." From 1986 to 1989, Guinness served as Executive Director of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation and was the leading drafter of the Williamsburg Charter, a bicentennial clarification and reaffirmation of the religious liberty clauses of the first amendment. He also co-authored the public school curriculum "Living With Our Deepest Differences". In 1991, along with Alonzo McDonald, he founded the Trinity Forum and served as Senior Fellow until 2004. Since then he has been a Senior Fellow with the EastWest Institute in New York, and is currently a Senior Fellow with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. He was the primary drafter of The Global Charter of Conscience, published at the European Union Parliament in Brussels in June 2014.

Personal life

Guinness currently lives in McLean, Virginia, with his wife Jenny. They have one son. An Anglican, he attended the Episcopal Church, but left, finding it too theologically liberal, in 2006. He currently attends The Falls Church, in the Anglican Church in North America. He was one of the speakers at the Anglican Church in North America Assembly in June 2014. Guinness is named after Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher Oswald Chambers.

Authored books

Edited works