Ellen Charry

Charry was married to Dana Charry, a psychiatrist, who died of lung cancer in 2003. Her chapter on lament in the book Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square shares letters they wrote to family and friends during his illness. She has two daughters and two granddaughters. Charry comes from a Jewish background and became an Episcopalian Christian while studying religion. Her PhD supervisor, Paul van Buren, was her baptismal sponsor.

Charry has served on the editorial boards of The Christian Century, Scottish Journal of Theology, and Pro Ecclesia and edited Theology Today from 1997 to 2004.

Charry was on the faculty of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University from 1992 until 1997. She joined the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary in 1997, teaching interfaith, historical and systematic theology. She is the Margaret W. Harmon Professor of Systematic Theology.

Born Ellen T. Zubrack, Charry grew up in Philadelphia and earned a BA in social work at Barnard College. She then obtained a Masters in Social Work from Yeshiva University. After her children were born, she returned to study, graduating with both an MA and PhD in religion from Temple University. Her 1987 dissertation, supervised by Paul van Buren (himself a student of Karl Barth), was titled Franz Rosenzweig and the Freedom of God. From 1989 to 1991, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Divinity School with a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

Ellen Tabitha Charry (born 1947) is an American theologian and author who is the Margaret W. Harmon Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.