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Professor David Wright

Obituary of Professor David Wright, historian and theologian; born 2 October, 1937, in Hayes, Kent; died 19 February, 2008, in Edinburgh, aged 70.

Professor David Wright of New College, Edinburgh, was a distinguished evangelical church historian and theologian in the Church of Scotland. An elder of the Kirk, he played a major role in debates in the Church of Scotland about sexuality and about baptism. He was an internationally recognised expert on the thought of the early fathers of the Church and the theology of the Reformation.

Wright was awarded the degree of doctor of divinity by Edinburgh University in 1997, and in 1999 he was appointed to an Edinburgh University personal chair in patristic and reformed Christianity. He served with great success in various areas of university life, where his leadership was greatly appreciated – as dean of the faculty of divinity, as convener of the university library committee, and as a member of the DLitt committee and the university court, for example.

Wright was equally involved in the life of the Church of Scotland, where he was frequently the spokesman for the conservative wing. A faithful elder of the Kirk, and a member of Holyrood Abbey Parish Church, he served for a year as moderator of the presbytery of Edinburgh, the first elder to serve in this position.

He was a member of many church committees. In the Church and the university, Wright had the rare gift of sustaining warm and attentive friendships with those with whom he disagreed.

Full obituary by Duncan B Forrester at The Scotsman.