Knox College, Canada

Areas of graduate student supervision

• Global history of Christianity
• Reformation era
• Sixteenth and Seventeenth century Scottish history; witchcraft accusations
• Canadian Church history, particularly Presbyterian history

Stuart has been a member of the Knox Faculty since 1996.

His research interests and publications are focused on both seventeenth century Scotland and contemporary religion in Canada, in particular religious demography and history related to The Presbyterian Church in Canada.

Stuart’s teaching areas include the global history of Christianity, the reformation era, the history of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the various explanations for changes which have occurred related to the place of religion in Western societies. Stuart is a member of the Presbytery of Brampton and serves as Minister-in-Association at Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church, Mississauga.

My (selected) publications:

• Brian Clarke and Stuart Macdonald, Leaving Christianity: Changing Allegiance in Canada since 1945. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2017.
• The Witches of Fife: The Witch-hunt in Fife Scotland. East Linton, John Tuckwell, 2002.
• Stuart Macdonald and Daniel MacLeod, eds., Keeping the Kirk: Scottish Religion and Home and the Diaspora (Guelph: University of Guelph, 2014).
• “Interesting Times Indeed: Reflections on the Last Decade at the Toronto School of Theology,” Toronto Journal of Theology (37:1) Spring 2021.
• “John Knox, the Scottish Church, and Witchcraft Accusations,” Sixteenth Century Journal XLVIII/3 (2017).
• “Counting Witches: Illuminating and Distorting the Shape of Witchcraft Accusations in Scotland” in Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, Vol 37.
• “Creating a Useable Past: Retelling Christian History for the Twenty-first Century” CSCH Presidential Address 2015, Canadian Society of Church History Papers, 2015, 141-155.
• “The Changed (and Changing) Face of Church History” in Toronto Journal of Theology, Supplement 1, 2015, 29-42.
• “Loss of Memory in the Diaspora: The Debate around the Relocation of the Statue of Margaret Wilson at Knox College, Toronto” in Daniel MacLeod and Stuart Macdonald, eds., Keeping the Kirk: Scottish Religion and Home and the Diaspora(Guelph: University of Guelph, 2014), 225-250.
•  “For Empire and God: Canadian Presbyterians and the Great War” in Gordon L. Heath, ed., Canadian Churches and the First World War (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick, 2014), 133-151.
• “Myth meets reality: Canadian Presbyterians and World War.” Canadian Society of Church History Papers, 2012, 103-20.
• “Canadian Presbyterians and Vatican II: A Silent Revolution” in Michael Attridge, Catherine E. Clifford, and Gilles Routhier, eds., Vatican II: Expériences canadiennes – Canadian Experiences (Ottawa: University of Ottawa press, 2011), 78-105.
• “Religion and Secularization in Canada: Education and the Impact on Mission” in Jan A.B. Jongeneel, Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chong Ku Paek, Scott W. Sunquist, and Yuko Watanabe, eds. Christian Mission and Education in Modern China, Japan, and Korea: Historical Studies (Peter Lang, 2009), 27-42.
• “Presbyterian and Reformed Christians and Ethnicity” in Paul Bramadat and David Seljak, eds., Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2008), 168-203.
• “Enemies of God Revisited: Recent Publications on Scottish Witch-hunting” in Scottish Economic and Social History Vol 23, pt. 2 (2003), 65-84.
• “Torture and the Scottish Witch-hunt: A Re-examination” in Scottish Tradition (Vol. 27, 2002), 95-114.
• “In Search of the Devil in Fife witchcraft cases, 1560-1705″ in Julian Goodare, ed., The Scottish witch-hunt in context(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 33-50.

With Dr. Brian Clarke:

• Leaving Christianity: Changing Allegiance in Canada since 1945. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2017.
• “No Need to Turn out the Lights: Anglicans in Canada in the Twentieth and the Twenty-first Centuries” in Sean A. Otto and Thomas Powers, eds., Reformation Worlds: Antecedents and Legacies in the Anglican Tradition (New York: Peter Lang, 2016), 199-212, with online graphs.
• “How are Canada’s Five Largest Protestant Denominations Faring? A Look at the 2001 Census” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religeuses 40/4), January 2012, 511-534.
• “Simply ‘Christian’: Canada’s newest major religious denomination” Toronto Journal of Theology (23/2) 2007, 109-125.