Kline, a former moderator of the Presbytery of Atlanta, served as president of Columbia Seminary from 1971 to 1976. He previously worked at the seminary as a professor of theology from 1969 to 1985 and as dean of the faculty from 1969 to 1971.
Kline also served as chairman of the philosophy department at Agnes Scott College and as a member of the
Committee on Theological Education and the Committee on Theology and Culture for the Presbyterian Church (US). He was a graduate of the College of Wooster and Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned a doctorate in philosophical theology from Yale University.
— Leslie Scanlon
