Spencer Lavan (December 31, 1937 – September 29, 2016) was an American scholar of comparative religion and a Unitarian Universalist minister.
Since his ordination in 1962, Spencer Lavan served as a Unitarian Universalist minister mostly by teaching in higher education.
He organized and chaired the Department of Medical Humanities at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Maine (1982–88).
Finally, he served as the Dean and Chief Executive of the Meadville Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago (1988–96).
They are the parents of four adult children, Jonathan, Daniel, Timothy and Joanna and have six grandchildren, Charles, Peter, Anna, Isaac, Lucia and Malcolm.