Alister McGrath was born in Belfast in 1953, and educated at Down High School, Downpatrick, and the Methodist College Belfast. Although McGrath was an atheist as a teenager, he discovered Christianity while an undergraduate at Oxford University, and has spent the rest of his life exploring its rich themes and their wider impact. After gaining first class honours in Chemistry at Oxford, McGrath earned his doctorate in molecular biophysics in the laboratories of Professor Sir George Radda, and went on to gain first class honours in theology, and two further earned Oxford doctorates in theology, and intellectual history.
He began his teaching career at Oxford in 1983, when he was appointed lecturer in Christian doctrine at Wycliffe Hall. He was appointed University Research Lecturer in Theology in 1993, Principal of Wycliffe Hall in 1995, and Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University in 1998. After two years as Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford from 2006, McGrath was appointed Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education at King’s College London, and returned to Oxford as Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion in 2014. He retired from this endowed chair in 2022, and now serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford.
McGrath also held several other appointments alongside these positions, including President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics from 2006–14, and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College London (a chair in public theology founded in the City of London in 1597) from 2015–18. He holds both British and Irish citizenship, and lives with his family near Oxford.