Finlay MacDonald

FP’s Road to Damascus and Beyond

Finlay Macdonald attended the High School of Dundee from 1951 until 1963. Early memories include a scolding from Miss Ruby Falconer for managing to lodge his savings bank half-crown in the inkwell of his desk. It was a perfect fit.

Finlay left the School with the intention of becoming a lawyer but a change of direction led him to ministry in the Church of Scotland. At St Andrews he was the last non-sabbatical President of the Students’ Representative Council, also serving as a VicePresident of the Scottish Union of Students. This cost him a re-sit in Hebrew, but it was worth it and he emerged from St Andrews with degrees in Arts and Divinity.

Finlay’s first parish was Menstrie in Clackmannanshire from where he moved to Jordanhill in Glasgow. In those early years of ministry he continued to study, focussing on the Kirk’s uneasy relationship with the Westminster Confession of Faith. This largely ignored Calvinist document, adopted by the General Assembly of 1647, remains the Kirk’s official ‘Subordinate Standard’ after Scripture, and Finlay’s critique led to the award of a PhD.

His ministry included chaplaincy to Jordanhill College School. He also served as a Governor of Jordanhill College; thereafter as a member of Strathclyde University Court when the College became the University’s Faculty of Education. In 2002, Strathclyde honoured him with a Fellowship of the University.

In 1996 Finlay became Principal Clerk of the General Assembly, a senior role in the central administration of the Church. In 2001 he was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen and in 2002 elected Moderator of the General Assembly. That same year St Andrews University conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.

The moderatorial year involves engagements on behalf of the Church at home and overseas and included tours to South-East Asia, the Middle East and Canada. A particular highlight came during a visit to Syria. En route to Damascus, Finlay took a phone call from a Scottish journalist looking for a comment on some issue of the day. The journalist hoped she wasn’t interrupting anything to which, savouring the moment, Finlay replied: “I’m on the road to Damascus”. In fact a Damascene moment awaited as, on arrival, he received a message inviting him to convey a Christian greeting at Friday prayers in the city’s Abu Nour Mosque. This was in February 2003, on the very eve of the Iraq War. The Moderator was welcomed by the Grand Mufti as ‘a cousin in faith’ and introduced as ‘a follower of their uncle Jesus Christ’ – a lovely family image. In his address Finlay expressed concern at the prospect of war and stressed that any conflict should not be seen as between Christians and Muslims. Picking up on the ‘cousin’ relationship he observed that Christians, Muslims and Jews share a common ancestor in Abraham.

The Iraq war was a response to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Following that atrocity Finlay, along with other church leaders, had invited Scotland’s faith communities to a dayconference at Scottish Church’s House in Dunblane. From this emerged the Scottish Interfaith Council (now Interfaith Scotland) of which Finlay served as Vice-Convener for a number of years.

Another initiative was a 2008 ‘Interfaith Pilgrimage’ to the Holy Land. Co-led by Finlay, with a Jewish and Muslim colleague, the party also included members of the Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh communities, amongst whom were a number of students. Over ten days the group travelled within Israel and the West Bank, listening and learning across the faith and political spectrums. On the final day an interfaith service was held in the beautiful Scots Church of St Andrew’s Jerusalem, to which each faith group contributed.

Since retiring in 2010 Finlay has published books on Scottish Church History, Interfaith Relations and changing church attitudes on human sexuality. He lives in the Borders with his wife, Elma, also a former HSD pupil. They have family locally and also in Australia.