Dr. Harry O. Maier received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pacific Lutheran University, a Master of Divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University.

He has served two parishes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in Victoria and Delta, British Columbia. From 1991-93, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at Vancouver School of Theology and the University of British Columbia. He has been a full-time member of VST's faculty since 1994.

Dr. Maier is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (University of Heidelberg, 1999-2000; 2004), was Father Edo Gatto Chair at St. Francis Xavier University in 2003 and honorary Professor at the University of Exeter in 2009. He publishes in a variety of areas, including the representation of violence in Antiquity, ancient and contemporary apocalyptic theory, ecotheology and the New Testament, Roman imperial iconography and New Testament theology, the social meaning of clothing in Antiquity, Second Century Christianity- especially Ignatius of Antioch and 1 Clement, and heresy and Christian diversity in the 4th and 5th centuries. In 2009, when guest professor in Exeter he offered research on the use of the Book of Revelation in American Evangelical environmental ethics. He is presently working on a book on Roman imperial iconography, Picturing Paul in Empire: Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles against the Backdrop of Roman Imperial Iconography to be published by T&T Clark/Continuum, as well as a commentary on Colossians and Philemon in the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series. In 2009/10 he was awarded with Robert Daum an Association of Theological Schools Collaborative Research Grant on the theme, "Disturbing Images: Reading Civic Ideals in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity against the Backdrop of Roman Imperial Iconography." From 1 January to 31 December 2012 he will be on sabbatical as a Research Fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany, with generous support from the University as well as the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He will be researching the theology of place and self in early Christianity as a contribution to the research project headed by Prof. Dr. Jorg Rupke and Prof. Dr. Hans Joas, "Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective."