Tom Greggs

Tom Greggs holds the Marischal Chair of Divinity (the oldest separated Divinity chair established in 1616) at the University, and is a founding co-director of the Aberdeen Centre for Protestant Theology. He also currently serves as Head of Divinity at Aberdeen. He previously held a chair in Historical and Doctrinal Theology, and until 2011, when he joined the University of Aberdeen, was Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Chester. He has also taught at the University of Cambridge. In 2019, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Tom's principal publications include: The Breadth of Salvation: Rediscovering the Fullness of God's Saving Work (Baker, 2020); A Dogmatic Ecclesiology: Vol. 1 -- The Priestly Catholicity of the Church (Baker, 2019); Theology against Religion: Constructive Dialogues with Bonhoeffer and Barth (T&T Clark, 2011); Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation: Restoring Particularity (OUP, 2009); New Perspectives for Evangelical Theology (Routledge, 2010); and The Vocation of Theology Today (Cascade, 2013, with Rachel Muers and Simeon Zahl). He is also the author of over 50 articles and book chapters. His current work focuses on ecclesiology, and he has just completed the first volume of his 3 volume Dogmatic Ecclesiology. Alongside this, with Maria Dekake and Steven Kepnes, he is writing A Handbook for Scriptural Reasoning, and is writing with his colleagues, Grant Macaskill and John Swinton, a short book in response to Covid-19 and the changed world in which we live. Tom is also working on a new introduction to Systematic Theology for SPCK, as well as essays on theology and social class, theology and identity politics, redemption and illumination. Tom serves as the editor of Brill's Companions to Modern Theology Series and co-editor of the Edinburgh University Press Critical History of Theology Series. He is a member of the editorial boards of The Journal for Scriptural Reasoning and Holiness (a newly launched Methodist peer-reviewed journal), as well as being a consultant editor for Stanford University Press's 'Encountering Traditions' series. Tom is the former Secretary of Society for the Study of Theology (2010-2013; acting secretary 2008-10); and has served as co-chair of the Scriptural Reasoning Panel at the American Academy of Religion, for which he currently sits on the Book Awards Jury for the History of Religion Section. He was elected a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Young Academy of Scotland, and is an Honorary Professor of Theology at St Mellitus College, London. He has been a visiting research fellow at St John's College, Durham, and College of Arts and Sciences International Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor in Religion at the University of Virginia. Tom serves on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, having been elected in 2015, and on the Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church. He was involved in 2017 in a theological review of the Crown Nominations Commission as the only non-Anglican member. He is a Preacher in the British Methodist Connexion, and has given sermons around the world. He regularly leads Continuing Professional Development for clergy, speaks at large church conferences, and appears on the radio. He was the 2014 Fernely Hartley-Lecturer for the Methodist Church, and addressed the doctrine of the Priesthood of All Believers. He also gave the 2014 Conference Lecture for the Methodist Church on the impact of Doctrine on the life and ministry of the church (an honour very rarely bestowed on a non-presbyter to presbyteral session); this paper was used to launch the journal Holiness. Tom's own theological training took place at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He was awarded an open scholarship at Christ Church, University of Oxford, where he was very influenced by the late Professor John Webster. Tom graduated from Oxford with the highest first class honours in his year in Theology, for which was received the Denyer and Johnson Prize. Following time as a teacher of Religion and Philosophy at the Manchester Grammar School (and a PGCE in Religious Studies, Philosophy and PSHE), Tom took a PhD in Systematic Theology at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Professor David Ford (Regius Professor of Divinity). During his doctorate, he also studied with Dr Thomas Graumann and Professor Dan Hardy. A Scouser born and bred, Tom remains a foundation guardian at his old school, the Liverpool Blue Coat. Outside of Theology, his interests include politics, crime novels, cooking, wine, theatre and jazz. He is married to Heather and lives in rural Aberdeenshire.