Donald Macleod has died at the age of 82. For six decades he was widely considered to be one of Scotland’s most important theologians and teachers.
Macleod was born into a working-class, Gaelic-speaking home on the Isle of Lewis in 1940, leaving to study at the University of Glasgow and then the Free Church College in Edinburgh. Aged 22, he became minister of Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland in the Scottish Highlands. In 1970, he moved to Glasgow to serve as the pastor at Partick Highland Free Church, where he usually preached six times a week in either English or Gaelic. A few years later he served at the Free Church College (now Edinburgh Theological Seminary) as Professor of Systematic Theology, becoming Principal in 1999. He remained a full-time member of staff until 2011 and continued to teach there for years afterwards.
Macleod was known for his emphasis on historic Scottish Reformed theology and his fervent defences of the Westminster Confession. But his main theological interest was the cross of Christ and the love of God there demonstrated.
