Leading New Testament professor, Dr. Scot X. McKnight, announced early this year that he would be resigning from the embattled Northern Seminary, located near Chicago, due to a toxic culture in its leadership. Scot recently announced that he will resume his teaching career in my old hometown of “Heavenly Houston,” as I like to call it. McKnight will be teaching New Testament and leading the DMin program at the Houston Theological Seminary, a school within Houston Christian University (HCU).
This has been a pleasant surprise to me. I got my college education at the University of Houston. And I lived in Houston and its suburb, Friendswood, for a total of forty years. (I now live in Arizona.) Houston Christian University is the former Houston Baptist University. I used to go there occasionally to study in their library.
Dr. Scot McKnight is a dear friend of mine. We met in 1992 during my first year on the PGA Tour’s Senior Tour at the Ameritech Senior Open played at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora, Illinois. (I co-led the tournament the first round with my friend Dale Douglas by shooting a 65, and I finished tied for third to winner Douglas.) I also was interested in McKnight because he wrote theological books. (By now, Scot probably has written a hundred or more.)
At that time, McKnight was a New Testament professor at his alma mater Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) near Chicago. Through a series of contacts, I had learned that McKnight was an avid golfer. So, I contacted him and invited him to the tournament. It became a long term and blessed friendship. At his next school, at North Park University (where I was later awarded with an honorary PhD), Scot founded the Kermit Zarley Lectures with me as the donor. We had several renown Bible scholars as guest speakers. The first one was Dr. James (Jimmy) D. G. Dunn, Scot’s dissertation supervisor. Scot then got me to join the Society of Biblical Literature in 1999. Ever since, I have attended its Annual Meeting every year except one. And for a few years they included me in the “Jimmy Dunn dinner” at SBLAM, which was a gathering of Dunn’s PhD students. All of these were truly remarkable and blessed experiences for me, and they were all because of the personable, bright, and witty Dr. Scot McKnight.
Scot, I wish you the best in Houston! I know the students will love you and be blessed.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In