Cecil Leonard "Chip" Murray (September 26, 1929 – April 5, 2024) was an American theologian.

Murray was born in Lakeland, Florida, the second child of Janie Williams and Robert Murray.^[1][2] After his mother died when he was three years old, Murray's father moved Cecil and his two siblings to West Palm Beach, Florida.^[1][2] There, his father became a principal of a local high school and remarried.^[1][2] During his middle and high school years, Murray became a junior preacher at his church, Payne Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME).^[1][3] As a teenager, he and his brother Edward witnessed his father confront three white men who were harassing Black people waiting at a soup kitchen. In response, the white men attacked their father then Cecil and Edward.^[1][3] After the incident, Murray's father made a blood oath covenant with his sons, swearing that they would always love and defend Black people.^[3]

He became the pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles in 1977.^[1] After his retirement in 2004, he was later the John R. Tansey Chair of Christian Ethics at University of Southern California until his retirement in 2022.^[1][4][5] Murray died of natural causes in Los Angeles on April 5, 2024, at the age of 94.^[6][7]