Some personal news

I am honored, humbled, and just plain excited to be able to share that I am joining the faculty of Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto as an associate professor of New Testament.

I vividly remember, twenty years ago now, picking up a copy of Ephraim Radner’s book Hope Among the Fragments in the (magnificent, though now sadly shuttered) bookstore at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. That was probably my first encounter with one of Wycliffe’s faculty members, and I went on to read much more from Ephraim and his colleagues. (Ephraim’s work was one of the things that eventually led me into the Anglican Communion, but that’s a story for another time…) Suffice it to say, I am genuinely glad and grateful to be joining an institution with such an important legacy of theological work and Christian formation.

I am especially excited to have the opportunity of directing PhD projects for the first time in my career. I invite candidates with interest in the following areas (especially but not exclusively) to get in touch with me: Pauline and Johannine literature, the biblical hermeneutics and exegesis of significant figures from Christian history, and the contemporary quest for a responsible Christian canonical interpretation of the Bible.

But I also recall hearing the New Testament scholar D. A. Carson once say that the ideal seminary professor is someone who feels conflicted about being a seminary professor because their truest, deepest calling is to the church, and I feel that tension. I love the church and want to strengthen its witness. I hope that by teaching at Wycliffe, I am able to serve as a kind of supportive staff person for frontline workers in the Lord’s vineyard.