McKnight Leaving to Accept New Position

CHICAGO, IL (April 27, 2012) – North Park University professor and popular author Scot McKnight announced this week that he is leaving the school to take a position at Northern Baptist Seminary.

McKnight, the Karl A. Olson Professor in Religious Studies, announced the decision on his Jesus Creed blog and said he will leave at the end of the current semester.

“A little over seventeen years ago I got a phone call from David Nystrom, professor at North Park, asking me if I would be willing to consider teaching at North Park,” McKnight writes. “I said I was and that phone call led eventually to my being offered a teaching post at North Park University, where I have been teaching with delight.”

McKnight wrote on his blog that, “For at least five years I have had an inner yearning to teach in a seminary, to concentrate on leaders, pastors and preparing folks to work in churches and in God’s mission in this world, and in fact almost left North Park some time back to join a seminary faculty.”

In his announcement, McKnight praised the school. “Everything about NPU breathes the Evangelical Covenant Church … who supported my book The Jesus Creed in ways that pushed me into circles and opportunities I never anticipated, whose pastors I have met and preached for and chatted with and corresponded with and prayed for … and for the wonderful balance this gem of evangelicalism has somehow found.”

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Comments

  • We’re all wondering the same thing – why not NPTS? You have made a huge impact on our community and globally. We’ll miss you, Scot, but many of us will continue to follow you as you follow God’s direction in your life! Please keep writing!

  • I don’t mean to ask an impolite question, but why not simply teach at OUR seminary?  It seems like an obvious choice, allowing Professor McKnight to both “teach in a seminary, to concentrate on leaders, pastors and preparing folks to work in churches and in God’s mission in this world” and stay within the denomination that has supported him as deeply as he describes. Again, no disrespect or offense intended, but the question needs to be asked.

  • You will certainly be missed, Scot. We’ve appreciated your tenure at NPU …and read your writings with great interest. When I got my new Study Bible, the choice was sealed when we noted that you were one of the contributors. Blessings as you accept this new challenge!

  • This is great news for Northern and sad news for North Park. I have appreciated Scot’s books, and our children have appreciated his teaching and presence on campus. He’s been a light for the entire denomination. It surely seems like a missed opportunity for North Park Seminary, though. What a match his heart for training pastors would have been with the seminary’s mission, and what an addition he would have been to the faculty!

  • what a loss. I am sorry North Park Theological Seminary didn’t offer a position to this gifted and Godly professor/writer/speaker and theologian

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