by Madeline Linnell ‘17
Managing Editor
Gordon College alumnus and former professor Theodore Malloch ’74 is President Trump’s likely European Union (EU) Ambassador nominee. Malloch taught in the Political Studies Department from 1979-1983. As a student, he was involved in the Tartan, serving as the News Editor.
Biblical Studies Professor Marv Wilson remembers Malloch as “a solid student, thoughtful and rather serious in demeanor.” Fellow ’74 classmate and now Gordon History Professor, David Goss, said of Malloch, “I remember him as intellectually very bright, perceptive, insightful and articulate—with a dry sense of humor.”
Goss also noted that Malloch, a Gordon alumnus, donated “a magnificent, framed medieval brass rubbing of a knight’s tomb effigy, which currently dominates the main staircase in Frost Hall.” Goss adds, it’s “a work of art I especially like.”
Since his employment at Gordon, Malloch has worked for numerous academic and political institutions. He was employed by the U.S. State Department in the Bureau of Research and Intelligence; he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto; was a research professor at Yale University’s Spiritual Capital Initiative; was senior fellow at Saïd Business School at Oxford University and served as a board member of the Templeton Foundation.
Malloch was also Deputy to the Executive Secretary in the UN Economic Commission for Europe between 1988 and 1992. He currently teaches leadership and governance at the Henley School of Business in the UK and serves on numerous corporate and not for profit boards.
Malloch now stands as the likely nominee for EU Ambassador. However, many EU officials are disgruntled by the potential nomination. EU officials believe Malloch to be unsupportive of the EU and therefore, unwelcome. Gianni Pittella, Socialist MEP, asked that President Trump reconsider the appointment.
Speaking to The Guardian, Pitella said, “For the sake of the current and future relationship with the US administration, we strongly recommend President Trump not appoint Mr Malloch as next US ambassador to the EU. Should President Trump be otherwise willing to challenge Europe so blatantly, I think the EU should then declare him ‘persona non grata’.”
In a BBC Interview, Malloch said he thinks the EU will be “redefined” in a number of months, because of upcoming elections within different European countries that will help shape a new European identity. Furthermore, the Euro currency is “not only demised,” he said, “but has a real problem and could in fact collapse in the coming year or year and a half.” In another BBC interview, Malloch said he served on the team that “helped bring down the Soviet Union,” and he continued, “Maybe there’s another union needs a little taming.”
Malloch offered this exclusive quote to the Tartan. He said, “I believe Europe is suffering from radical secularization and is detached from its Christian moorings and increasing its living on the fumes of its past spiritual legacy.”
Dr. Malloch’s notable academic credentials, distinguished career and choice by Mr. Trump as the U.S. Ambassador to the EU comes as no surprise to me as a former classmate. In many ways he might be viewed by some as a poster child of Gordon College in its pursuit of broad recognition and academic prestige. My association with other Christian colleges has led me to observe the kind of students who are most frequently recognized in public ways, honored by their alma mater, and used in campus publications to demonstrate the kind of graduates that reflect their success as an institution of higher education. My question to every college that presents themselves as a model of education fashioned after Jesus, is whether such popular figures are those who best exemplify the spirit of Christ and a lifetime of kingdom service that we are all called to live? When I think back at all the students I have had over many years, I ask myself, who were the humble, sacrificial persons whose lives most resemble the vision of their Christian college and the Lord it extols. Maybe it was a young woman from a small farming town who worked her way through college and law school, to become a public defender on a modest salary in the nation’s capital who represented juvenile defenders, who lacked anyone to speak for them in the justice system. Or the young man who taught in a Native-American middle school in rural South Dakota by day and ran a homeless center that provided a hot meal, warm place to sleep at night, and voluntary Bible study twice a week. I could share many examples, but you get my drift and recognize my point. I have no desire to judge others, but wanted to share how some of my own views have changed working with college students and following them as they pursue a calling, choose a lifestyle, and follow a path of sacrificial service to ngGod and their neighbors. These are people walking in the footsteps of Christ, reaching out to others in need, seeking no honors, serving with humility, sacrificing for “the least of these”, giving time to listen, lending your car, visiting the sick, helping a classmate with their studies, etc. I knew both students and faculty that modeled Christ in these ways and were not often the most popular or lauded for their publications. But they shared a meal, invited someone to an event, taking them along to church and showing that our eternal life begins now, not when we are no longer living in the midst of God’s good creation.