Biography
Torrance was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He is the younger son of Thomas Forsyth Torrance, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1976. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and at Monkton Combe School in Bath, England, then graduated MA (University of Edinburgh), BD (University of St Andrews), DPhil (Oriel College, Oxford).
Following Oxford, Torrance was ordained on 23 January 1982 by the Church of Scotland's Presbytery of Shetland as minister at Northmavine Parish Church in the Shetland Islands. Northmavine is the most northerly parish on the main island of the Shetland archipelago, and is famous for the stunning cliff scenery of Eshaness.
He was also commissioned as a Territorial Army chaplain serving with 2/51 Highland and then the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1982 to 1997.
After serving for four years in Northmavine, in 1985 Torrance moved to The Queen's College, Birmingham, an ecumenical theological college (mainly Anglican and Methodist) with strong links to the University of Birmingham. There, he taught New Testament studies.
In 1989 he moved to a lectureship in Patristics and New Testament at the University of Birmingham. He was invited to become a member of the International Dialogue between The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Orthodox Church in 1992, becoming co-chair in 1995.
In 1993, he moved to the University of Aberdeen, subsequently being promoted to a personal chair and becoming Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Divinity in 2001.
In 2001 he was appointed a Chaplain-in-Ordinary to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.
He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 2003–2004.
In 2005 he represented the Church of Scotland and the WARC at the installation of Pope Benedict XVI. In 2008, he represented the WARC at the Lambeth Conference.
Torrance appears as himself in Alexander McCall Smith’s Edinburgh novels, The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (2008) and The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (2011).
Read more about this topic: Iain Torrance
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