Larry Dwight Shinn (January 16, 1942 - April 2, 2025) was president of

Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. It was integrated from as early as 1866 ...

, Kentucky, from 1994 to 2012. Prior to this appointment he taught for fourteen years in the Department of Religion,

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

, and was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal-arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts a ...

. Larry Shinn received his undergraduate degree from

Baldwin-Wallace College Baldwin Wallace University (BW) is a private university in Berea, Ohio, United States. Established in 1845 as Baldwin Institute by Methodist businessman John Baldwin, it merged with nearby German Wallace College in 1913 to become Baldwin-Wallac ...

located in Berea Ohio. In 1972 he defended his dissertation ''Krsna's Lila: An Analysis of the Relationship of the Notion of Deity and the Concept of Samsara in the Bhagavata Purana'' and received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

history of religions The history of religion is the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BCE). The prehistory of religion involves the st ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. Shinn has studied

Hare Krishnas The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement, is a religious organization that follows the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism. It was founded on 13 July 1966 in New York City by ...

in America for more than forty years and, among his other writings, published, ''The Dark Lord'', a study of the Hare Krishnas and the cult controversy. At Oberlin, Shinn became Danforth Professor of South Asian Religion, and was ordained as a minister in the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was ...

. In both high-school and college he played on championship football teams, and served for nine of his fourteen years at Oberlin as assistant football coach. Jon C. Dalton, ""Integrating Sports Into College Life and Learning": An Interview with Larry Shinn, President of Berea College" Journal of College and Character, vol. 7, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1-3. https://doi.org/10.2202/1940-1639.1527

Selected publications

''Krishna Consciousness in the West''
David G. Bromley, Larry D. Shinn, 1989
''Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions''
Keith Crim, Roger Aubrey Bullard, Larry D. Shinn, 1981
''The Dark Lord: Cult Images and the Hare Krishnas in America''
by Larry D. Shinn, 1987

*Two Sacred Worlds: Experience and Structure in the World's Religions, Larry D. Shinn, 1977. Nashville: Abingdon.

References

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Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shinn, Larry 1942 births Living people 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American theologians 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American theologians American Indologists American male non-fiction writers American religion academics American United Methodist clergy Baldwin Wallace University alumni Berea College faculty Bucknell University faculty Methodists from Ohio Methodist theologians Methodist writers Oberlin College faculty Presidents of Berea College Princeton University alumni Researchers of new religious movements and cults