James C. "Jim" Livingston '52

James C. “Jim” Livingston '52 died after a stroke, on July 31, 2011. The Williamsburg, Virginia, resident was eighty-one.

Jim was a history major and graduated with honors. He was president of Delta Kappa Epsilon and joined the lacrosse team. He later earned a master's degree at Union Theological Seminary and a doctorate, in 1965, at Columbia University.

As a Presbyterian minister, he worked on the staffs at Riverside Church and Central Presbyterian Church in New York City. Jim began his teaching career at Southern Methodist University in 1963. He joined the faculty at the College of William and Mary as the founding head of the Department of Religion, now known as the Department of Religious Studies, in 1968. Jim taught at William and Mary for thirty years, retiring as the Walter G. Mason Professor of Religion in 1998. He also served as the first dean of the undergraduate program at William and Mary.

“As an author and scholar, Professor Livingston had few peers,” William and Mary President Taylor Reveley said in a news release. “As a teacher, mentor, and devoted member of the college community, Jim set the standard. He never shied away from the difficult assignment and was one of our most respected faculty members and campus leaders.” William and Mary Provost Michael C. Halleran called him “a pillar on which the modern William and Mary was built.”

Jim was widely known in religious-studies circles as an expert in nineteenth-century Christianity. His fellow scholars often called him “Mr. Nineteenth Century.” JIm wrote eleven books on religious studies, including Anatomy of the Sacred and Modern Christian Thought, and hundreds of articles and scholarly papers. He edited several books. Jim was a fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

He was an early activist in the civil rights movement and was arrested during a protest in Georgia in the early 1960s and spent several days in jail. “He was very passionate about that,” his daughter, Susannah Livingston, told William and Mary officials.

In a profile for his 40th class reunion, Jim said, “I found my classes and out-of-class life rather intense, heady, and memorable.” In a note to the College, Susannah Livingston said, “He … always spoke of his time there as one of the happiest and most enriching periods of his life.”

He loved tennis, classical music, dancing to big-band music, and summers at Lake Michigan and other travel.

Jim was survived by Jacqueline, his wife of fifty-six years; daughters Sarah Livingston and Susannah; and four grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be sent to Kenyon College, Office of Development, Gambier, Ohio, 43022; Union Theological Seminary, 3041 Broadway, New York, 10027; or Bruton Parish Church, P.O. Box 3520, Williamsburg, Virginia, 23187.