Dr. James Leo Garrett, Jr. is Distinguished Professor of Theology Emeritus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He holds a B.A. from Baylor University (1945), a B.D. from Southwestern Baptist Seminary (1948), a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary (1949), a Th.D. from Southwestern Baptist Seminary (1954), and a Ph.D. from Harvard University (1966). He has also studied at the Catholic University of America, the University of Oxford, St. John's University, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has taught at both Baylor University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and was a visiting professor at the Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary. He has also lectured in Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Romania, the Ukraine, and at numerous U.S. schools.

He has been author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of a dozen books, including Baptist Church Discipline (Broadman Press, 1962), Baptists and Roman Catholicism (Broadman Press, 1965), and We Baptists (Providence House, 1999). He has also contributed articles to twenty-one other books and has published hundreds of journal and encyclopedia articles and book reviews.

He has been a pastor or interim pastor at a number of Baptist churches. Among other activities, he has also served as the chairman of the Commission on Cooperative Christianity of the Baptist World Alliance, was an official guest at the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity during Vatican Council II, was secretary of the Commission on Human Rights of the Baptist World Alliance, is a former managing editor of the Southwestern Journal of Theology, and is a former editor of the Journal of Church and State. He was recently co-chairman of the Division of Study and Research of the Baptist World Alliance.

Professor Garrett has three sons and lives with his wife, Myrta Ann, in Fort Worth.