Faculty Directory

Scott MacDougall was born and raised in Central New York. He attended college in the greater New York City area, receiving his BA from Hofstra University. Following a career in the not-for-profit sector, he undertook the formal study of theology. MacDougall received his MA in theology from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in 2007 and his PhD in systematic theology from Fordham University in 2014. His research centers on ecclesiology and eschatology. He is interested in the difference a robust theological imagination of the future makes in how Christian community is lived out, both in the church itself and in the wider world. His first book, More Than Communion: Imagining an Eschatological Ecclesiology, was published in 2015 as volume 20 of Bloomsbury–T&T Clark’s Ecclesiological Investigations series. MacDougall has also published several articles and reviews and has contributed to online publications such as Religion Dispatches and the Huffington Post’s Religion section. MacDougall has served as Co-Editor in Chief of the Anglican Theological Review and was the inaugural Theologian to the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church.

Why I Teach: I began my theological training out of a desire to contribute in a rigorous way to the formation and nurturing of Christian perspectives and practices, among both clergy and laity seeking deeper engagement with their faith traditions. My approach to providing instruction in systematic theology is to introduce students to the beauties and riches of the Christian theological heritage, its foundational doctrines, its seminal figures, and its perennial questions, so that they are able to enter into and engage the ongoing stream of theological conversation in their own time and place with both integrity and creativity. For this to happen, it is crucial for theological instruction to make continual reference to the reality that theology is not only thought but is lived. That is, theology is as much practical as it is intellectual. I teach because I seek to help students perceive more clearly that the endeavor of systematic theology is itself an embodied Christian practice with the power to fortify or warp individuals and communities of faith, and because I want to provide them with the tools they need in order to practice Christian theology critically and constructively, to the benefit of the church and the world.