Michael Northcott

Michael Stafford Northcott (born 1955) is Professor Emeritus of Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for his contributions to environmental theology and ethics.

Life

Born in London on 13 May 1955 to James and Betty Northcott, Michael Northcott was raised in Kent, England, and attended schools in Beckenham and Cranbrook. He was married in 1977 to Jill Benz, with whom he has two daughters and a son.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in theology and a Master of Arts degree in systematic theology from the University of Durham where he attended St Chad's College. He was ordained to the diaconate of the Church of England, after attending Cranmer Hall, Durham, in 1981, and to the priesthood in 1982. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) and Sunderland Polytechnic (now Sunderland University) in 1982 for a thesis on new patterns of ministry in the Northeast of England; his advisor was David E. Jenkins. He served as an Anglican curate in St Clements, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, from 1981 to 1984.

He began his academic career as a research assistant in Sunderland Polytechnic from 1977 to 1980. He was appointed lecturer in practical theology at the Seminari Theologi Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur in 1984 and as Associate Professor in the South East Asia Graduate School of Theology in 1986. He joined the University of Edinburgh in 1989 as lecturer in Christian ethics and practical theology; he became a full professor there in 2007. He has supervised thirty doctoral students at Edinburgh. He is currently working at the University of Gadjah Mada (Universitas Gadjah Mada) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, as an Adjunct Professor as part of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies.

He has been visiting professor at Dartmouth College (1997 and 2011), Claremont School of Theology (2002), the Nicholas School of Earth Sciences, Duke University (2005), Flinders University Adelaide (2008), the University of Malaya (2008) and ETF Leuven (2019).

He writes regularly in the Church Times and is a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church where he has served as Associate Priest at Old Saint Paul's, Edinburgh, and St James, Leith.

Current research projects Northcott's research deals with the relationship between ethics, ecology and religion. He is currently working on four research projects: He is a co-investigator on the Human-Business at Edinburgh Initiative investigating the ethical implications of current modes of representing economic value.