Southern Baptist and award-winning Christian apologist and theologian Joshua Chatraw is the latest addition to the faculty of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham.
He will serve as the school’s next Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism and Cultural Engagement beginning July 1 and will teach courses in evangelism and apologetics.
“We are thrilled to have such a faithful, fruitful Baptist churchman moving into our Billy Graham chair,” said Beeson dean Douglas A. Sweeney. “Dr. Chatraw is a wonderful evangelist who thinks very deeply about changes in our culture and the ways in which they ought to inform our witness to the gospel. He’s also a humble man who loves the Lord and His church. He’s looking forward to making friends with and partnering in ministry with our Alabama Baptists.”
‘Compelling work in evangelism’
Chatraw, who is currently the executive director of the Center for Public Christianity in Raleigh, North Carolina, is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. He has served as associate pastor of two Baptist churches in Georgia and Virginia, and he currently serves as theologian-in-residence at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh.
“While Dr. Chatraw is unapologetically Southern Baptist, he enjoys working within a broad, interdenominational setting, which will serve him and those he serves within the Beeson community well in his new role,” Sweeney noted. “He’s also doing the most thoughtful, creative and compelling work in evangelism and cultural engagement in the country right now.”
Beeson development officer and retired Alabama Baptist pastor Gary Fenton agreed.
“Dr. Chatraw will be a gift to Beeson faculty and students, but also to the body of Christ in our city,” Fenton said. “He is an excellent communicator in both the spoken and printed word. When speaking Dr. Chatraw engages both the mind and the heart helping them connect with Scripture. What has impressed me most is his ability to communicate the truth of the gospel in ways that connect with our culture and to do so without compromising biblical teaching or the historic Christian faith.”
‘Essential to double down on training’
Chatraw shared with The Alabama Baptist his excitement and anticipation about his new role.
“In a day and age when theological education is becoming less personal and less rigorous, Beeson stands out as an evangelical institution poised to resist the mounting cultural pressures and return the Great Commission to the center of the Church’s mission,” he said.
“As I have studied the Church’s situation in the West, two things have become apparent. First, Christians sense their faith has become culturally fraught. Second, without proper confidence to relate the gospel in our changing context, evangelism has been put on the back burner,” Chatraw noted.
“To address these challenges, it will be essential for us to double down on training the next generation of leaders to faithfully handle the Scriptures and skillfully interpret the world.”
Chatraw’s previous roles
Prior to serving the Center for Public Christianity, Chatraw was the founder and executive director of the Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and served as associate professor of theology and apologetics at Liberty’s School of Divinity.
Chatraw has served as a guest lecturer at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He also serves as a fellow for the Center for Pastor Theologians and the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics.
He has written or co-written and edited eight books in the fields of evangelism and apologetics. His books have won awards through the years, the most recent being “Telling a Better Story: How to Talk about God in a Skeptical Age,” which won a 2021 Christianity Today Book Award.
Chatraw holds degrees from Southeastern Seminary (Ph.D.), Southern Seminary (M.Div.) and Georgia Southern University (B.B.A.). He and his wife, Tracy, have two children.
Recognizing Graham’s commitment to evangelism
In 1989, Billy Graham gave permission to Beeson Divinity School to establish a chair in his honor, recognizing his lifelong commitment to the ministry of evangelism. It’s one of only two schools with a Billy Graham chair. Southern Seminary is the other school.
Beeson’s Billy Graham Chair in Evangelism and Cultural Engagement was established at that time, fulfilling the wishes of the school’s benefactor, Ralph Waldo Beeson, that missions and evangelism be given a high priority in the school’s mission and curriculum.
“Those who have occupied the Graham Chair in the interceding years, namely Lewis Drummond and Lyle Dorsett, have faithfully equipped ministers to win lost persons to Jesus Christ and to develop dynamic churches that glorify God,” according to Beeson leadership.
(Compiled by Jennifer Davis Rash with additional reporting by Kristen Padilla)
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