Gerald McDermott retired in May after serving five years as the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Samford’s Beeson Divinity School. This followed 26 years of teaching undergraduates at Roanoke College in Virginia.
“I have loved teaching Beeson students, helping prepare them for the ministry—and being able to teach at the graduate level,” he said. “I have enjoyed being able to teach and write books at Samford.”
McDermott has written seven books and co-authored another since joining the Beeson faculty in 2015. In all, he has served as author, co-author or editor of 23 books. He has taught in the areas of history and doctrine, world religions, Anglican studies and 18th-century theologian Jonathan Edwards at Beeson.
In retirement, McDermott has also contracted to finish “a big book” modeled after Edwards’ work, History of the Work of Redemption. It will be the eighth book in which he has written about or used the famous preacher as subject matter. His book, Theology of Jonathan Edwards, coauthored with Michael McClymond, won Christianity Today’s Top Book in Theology/Ethics award for 2013.
McDermott notes that young scholars are now stepping up in three fields in which he has contributed—Edwards studies, Christian theology of world religions and theology of Israel. He calls this “a significant change” in his field a study.
An Anglican priest, McDermott served as teaching pastor at Christ the King Anglican Church in Hoover. McDermott will be a part-time teaching pastor at a Lutheran church in Virginia this summer, serve as a sabbatical replacement in the fall at Nashotah House in Wisconsin, and then settle with his wife Jean in Charlottesville, Virginia, at Christmas.
In addition to his writing, McDermott has another important opportunity scheduled for retirement time, helping to homeschool his 11 grandchildren. They range in age from two to 14.