108-Year-Old Theologian and NZ's Oldest Man Sir Lloyd Geering Dies

Sir Lloyd Geering, the theologian who became the only man in New Zealand to stand trial for anti-Christian views, has died at 108, 1News reported. He passed away on Thursday morning at Bob Scott Retirement Village in Lower Hutt, his family said. Born in Rangiora on February 26, 1918, during the last days of World War I, Geering lived long enough to become New Zealand’s oldest man in 2025, following the death of Jim Easton, a former prisoner of war.

His death closes the life of a man who spent more than a century shaping how New Zealanders think about faith — and who once put the Presbyterian Church itself on trial, in a sense, by forcing it to prosecute him for heresy.

A Heresy Trial That Changed How New Zealand Thought About Christianity

In 1967, Geering faced a heresy trial by the Presbyterian Church after declaring that humans have no immortal soul and that the resurrection of Jesus was best understood as a symbol of hope rather than a physical event. “Up until that time I used to think of the church as a rather holy society, different from all the other human societies,” he told RNZ in 2018. “It made me realise that the church is just as human as any other kind of society.”

Sir Lloyd Geering Passed Away 😢 | New Zealand's Oldest Man at 108

His writings and lectures as principal of Knox College in the 1960s changed how many New Zealanders viewed Christianity, his family said. Rather than ending his career, the trial propelled him into academia: he went on to found religious studies at Te Herenga Waka / Victoria University of Wellington, becoming its founding Professor of Religious Studies, and also lectured for the St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society.

From a Farm Without Electricity to the Order of New Zealand

Geering’s path ran from rural hardship to the country’s highest honors. For the first 25 years of his life, his family in Rangiora didn’t have electricity. He was raised in Dunedin, where he attended Otago Boys’ High School, Otago University, and Knox Theological College — and where, the Otago Daily Times reports, he spent almost half his life and enjoyed it. After ordination as a Presbyterian minister, he did pastoral work in Kurow, Opoho, and Newtown, experiences of loss and grief that his family said deeply informed his later scholarship.

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The state recognized his contribution in 2009, when he was knighted and made a member of the prestigious Order of New Zealand. Even in his later years he kept an active mind: in 2018 he told RNZ he spent his time playing Scrabble on Skype with people all over the world.

Family Honors Geering’s Legacy

Geering married three times — to Nancy McKenzie, who died in 1949; Elaine Parker, who died in 2001; and Shirley White, née Adams, who died in 2021. He had three children: Jonathan, who died in 2024, Judy, and Elizabeth. A private natural burial will take place at Wellington’s Natural Burial cemetery in Makara, and a public memorial will be organized — the Otago Daily Times specifies it will be held at St Andrew’s Church in Wellington, at a time and date yet to be announced.

108-Year-Old Theologian and NZ's Oldest Man Sir Lloyd Geering Dies — Photo: ODT

His family described him as a person of integrity, humour, compassion, and goodwill. They noted there is “much consolation in the many messages he has received in recent years thanking him for the help his courageous and clear statements of his beliefs have given them.” He was, they said, “a joy to have in our lives and we are grateful for having him for so long.”

At 108, Geering outlived the century he was born into — a century that saw him tried for heresy, vindicated, knighted, and remembered as the man who made a whole country reconsider what it believed.

Lloyd Geering, famed NZ theologian and professor, and NZ's oldest man, has died aged 108 early today, his family announces.

— https://x.com/tmurphyNZ/status/2118139873089790112