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Meet Rev. Dr. A. Donald Macleod

June 27, 2011

Alumnus Rev. Dr. A. Donald MacLeod received an honorary doctorate at our 2011 commencement

Dr. MacLeod holds a Bachelor of Divinity ('63) from Westminster.  On May 26th, he received an honorary doctorate from Westminster, and gave a lecture at the morning commencement seminar entitled "The Joys and Frustrations of a Christian Biographer."

Click here to listen to his Commencement Seminar, or see the manuscript available at his website.


Rev. A. Donald MacLeod receiving Honorary Doctorate
Rev. Dr. A. Donald Macleod (center) receiving Honorary Doctorate from Rev. Dr. Peter Lillback and Rev. Dr. Carl Trueman

Born in Philadelphia in 1938, Rev. MacLeod is the son of Presbyterian missionaries to China and Taiwan.  He completed an Honours History degree at McGill, and was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.  He then received the Bachelor of Divinity in 1963 from Westminster. Upon graduation, he was appointed by the Presbyterian Church in Canada to what became a seven-point charge in Nova Scotia.

In 1967 he was asked by the Presbytery of East Toronto to plant a church, Bridlewood Presbyterian Church, which grew to 200 members and adherents over 7 years. During that time he was also President of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (1973-5) and organized its 1975 Christian Leadership Seminar at York University. That year he accepted an appointment as General Director of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada.

In 1980, he became Associate Minister of Knox Church, Toronto, and helped form The Renewal Fellowship of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, for which he was its Chair and de facto Director for five years. He was called to Boston in 1987 to be Senior Minister of the historic Newton Presbyterian Church, and then returned to Canada in 1997 to St. Andrew's Church, Trenton, Ontario. He also taught at Tyndale Theological Seminary, Toronto.

Since that time he has been Chair of the denomination's Committee on History and was a 2002 nominee for Moderator of the General Assembly. He was recommended by the faculty of Tyndale to its Board to become Research Professor, effective January 2006. In 2005, he inaugurated the Reid Lectureship at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia under the auspices of the Religious and Theological Studies Fellowship, Canada.

He married Judith Shone in 1967, and has two adult sons and five grandchildren.

For more information, visit his website here.