William Henry Brackney (1948-2022) is also the Millard R. Cherry Distinguished Professor of Christian Thought and Ethics Emeritus at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and an ordained Baptist minister, presently accredited by the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches and the American Baptist Churches, USA. He was previously the Dean of Theology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and has published numerous books and articles dealing with post-Reformation Protestant thought, particularly the Baptist and Radical Reformation traditions. Most recently, Brackney has done significant work in the areas of global ethics and human rights, and was the director of the Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies (2008–2018). He is also a regular columnist for websites focused on ethics. Early life Born in 1948 in Washington, DC, William Brackney is the second son of Samuel Harp Brackney and Mildred Braisted Pointer and attended Gabriel DuVal Senior High School in Glenn Dale, Maryland. His mother was of Methodist heritage; his father came from a line of Quakers; the two parents determined upon a Baptist orientation because of the outreach of a neighborhood congregation. The family's early years blended Southern Baptist and Northern (American) Baptist outlooks. William matriculated in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Maryland (College Park) with a scholarship to study astrophysics. In 1967 he was admitted to the honors program in history and he defended a thesis in economic history, for which he received a BA (honors) degree. In 1970 he married Kathryn Godfrey Edens (born 1949) of Landover Hills, Maryland, and has two sons and a daughter. He next completed an MA in religion from The Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1972. being awarded a prize for his thesis in Patristic Evidences. He received a second MA from Temple University in Philadelphia, after which he earned the Doctor of Philosophy (with distinction), his dissertation topic being Religious Antimasonry: The Genesis of a Political Party in 1976. Mentors for his doctoral work at Temple included F. Ernest Stoeffler (Religion) and Joseph G. Rayback (History). He earned a Certificate in Modern Archives Administration from the US National Archives and Records Administration in 1979, also completing courses in library science at State University of New York at Geneseo. Throughout this period, Brackney served in leadership roles in Baptist and United Methodist churches in Texas, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, and New York. He was ordained a Baptist minister