Ministries

Honarary doctorate for Free Church College principal

Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 11:47 (BST)

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Professor Donald Macleod, Principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh, is to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA. The degree will be awarded at the seminary's graduation ceremony on 22 May.

Westminster Theological Seminary is a renowned academic centre of Reformed theological education which traces its history back to the Princeton Theological Seminary of Charles Hodge, BB Warfield, and J Gresham Machen, and which in the twentieth century boasted Cornelius Van Til and John Murray among its academic staff.

Macleod, who is Professor of Systematic Theology, feels honoured by the award and commented: “Like many of us here in Scotland, I owe a great debt to Westminster, and to its predecessor, Old Princeton. But I never dreamed of being associated with it in this way. It makes me feel even closer to Warfield, Machen and Hodge.”

All Professor Macleod's friends and colleagues throughout the Free Church and beyond are delighted that he is receiving this honorary doctorate and consider it richly deserved.

Professor Macleod, who hails originally from the Island of Lewis, entered the Free Church ministry in 1964 when he was ordained and inducted to the Kilmallie congregation, near Fort William. He was called in 1970 to Partick Highland in Glasgow where he conducted a hugely influential ministry. In 1978 his outstanding theological gifts were recognised when the General Assembly appointed him to the chair of Systematic Theology at the Free Church College. In 1999 he was chosen as Principal of the College by the General Assembly, and in that role he spearheaded the College's relationship with the University of Glasgow leading to the validation of the College's degree of Bachelor of Theology.

Macleod is well known as a previous editor of "The Monthly Record" of the Free Church and as a columnist in the West Highland Free Press, and has written several highly acclaimed theological books, including "The Person of Christ", "A Faith to Live By" and "Behold Your God". He has also written the autobiographical "The Living Past" recounting memories of growing up on the Island of Lewis.