Son of Free Church minister John Baillie (1829–1891), and his wife, Annie MacPherson, he was born in the Free Church manse in Gairloch, Wester Ross, on 26 March 1886.[1]
A leading theologian, he held academic posts in the UK, USA, and Canada. His brother Donald Macpherson Baillie was Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of St. Andrews and his other brother Peter Baillie served as a missionary doctor at Jalna, India.[2]
Baillie wrote A Diary of Private Prayer (1936), regarded as a devotional classic. But his most important contribution to theology was an exploration of the relationship of the knowledge of God to spiritual and moral experience. He served alongside of John T. McNeill and Henry P. Van Dusen as a general editor of the Library of Christian Classics series, which includes modern translations of the writings of Christian theologians and thinkers such as Aquinas, Augustine, Calvin, Luther and other reformers and early church fathers.[7]
As Convener of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly's "Commission for the Interpretation of God's Will in the Present Crisis" ("The Baillie Commission"), reporting to the Assembly 1941 to 1945, Baillie helped the Church to think through its approach and mission to the post-war world.[8] In 1948 he, and Isobel Forrester, and his brother, Donald, formed the Scottish Churches Ecumenical Association, which in 1950 merged with the Dollarbeg group which had organised ecumenical conferences since 1945.[9]
The grave of Rev John Baillie, Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh
He met Florence Jewel Fowler (1893–1969) while he was in France during the First World War. They married at Leamington Spa in 1919.[2] Their only child, Ian Fowler Baillie, was born in 1921.
He is buried with his wife Florence Jewel Baillie in Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh near the southeast corner of the original cemetery close to the Usher memorial. The grave is marked by a pale pink granite cross.
Sources
Nigel M. de S. et al., Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, pp. 693–698. T & T Clark, Edinburgh 1993. ISBN0-567-09650-5
George Newlands, "John and Donald Baillie" in Blackie, Nansie (2005) A Time for Trumpets: Scottish Church movers and shakers of the twentieth century Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press pp. 17–28.
^Secretariat for Evangelism (1954) Ecumenical Studies: Evangelism in Scotland Geneva: The World Council of Churches p. 55; John Baillie, 'Preface' (1945) God's Will for Church and Nation London: SCM Press, pp. 7–8.