John Tulloch

John Tulloch (1 June 1823 – 13 February 1886) was a Scottish theologian.

He was born at Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, and educated at the University of St Andrews and University of Edinburgh. In 1845 he became minister of St Paul's, Dundee, and in 1849 of Kettins, in Strathmore, where he remained for six years. In 1854 he was appointed Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews. The appointment was immediately followed by the appearance of his Burnet prize essay on Theism. At St Andrews, where he was also professor of systematic theology and apologetics, his teaching was distinguished by several novel features. He lectured on comparative religion and treated doctrine historically, as being not a fixed product but a growth. Furthermore, Tulloch was appointed as one of Her Majesty's Chaplains for Scotland and preached a number of sermons before Her Majesty the Queen in Scotland between 1866 and 1876.

He quickly won the attachment and admiration of his students. In 1862 he was appointed a clerk of the General Assembly, and from then on he took a leading part in the councils of the Church of Scotland. Tulloch was also deeply interested in the reorganization of education in Scotland, both in school and university, and acted as one of the temporary board which settled the primary school system under the Education Act of 1872.

In 1878 he was chosen to be Moderator of the General Assembly, and did much to widen the national church. Two positions on which he repeatedly insisted took a firm hold—first, that a church must be comprehensive of various views and tendencies, and that a national church especially should seek to represent all the elements of the life of the nation; secondly, that subscription to a creed can bind no one to all its details, but only to the sum and substance, or the spirit, of the symbol.

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