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OBU—Oklahoma Baptist University

Smith to Join Faculty as Chair of Hobbs School of Theology and Ministry

July 17, 2023

Dr. Brandon Smith will join the OBU faculty as associate professor of theology and early Christianity and chair of the Herschel H. Hobbs School of Theology and Ministry effective Jan. 1, 2024. He will likewise serve as the director of the Master of Arts in Christian Studies program.

Smith currently serves as assistant professor of theology and New Testament at Cedarville University. He joined the faculty at Cedarville in fall 2019 after spending the previous four years helping lead publishing, marketing and institutional relations for the Christian Standard Bible translation and serving as an elder at a church in the Nashville area. From 2012-2015, Smith served as director of communications, a member of the president’s leadership team, and associate editor for the Criswell Theological Review at Criswell College.

He also helped found the Center for Baptist Renewal and hosts the Church Grammar podcast. His research interests include the Trinity, canonical and theological interpretation, and patristic theology.

“We are thrilled that Dr. Brandon Smith, a committed churchman and proven scholar, has agreed to join the Hobbs School of Theology and Ministry. In the classroom, in the church, and in his publications, he demonstrates a commitment to the core values of Hobbs, namely to be biblically rooted, theologically faithful, and practically relevant in everything he says and does,” said Dr. Matthew Y. Emerson, OBU dean of theology, arts and humanities. “I believe he will bring vision and leadership to our outstanding faculty and students in Hobbs, and we look forward to him arriving in January.”

Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University and a Master of Arts in Theological and Biblical Studies from Criswell College. In 2020, Smith completed a Ph.D. in Theology from Ridley College (Melbourne). He is the author of numerous books, book contributions, journal articles, magazine articles and more. His books include The Trinity in the Book of Revelation (IVP Academic, 2022) and The Biblical Trinity (Lexham, 2023).

Smith and wife Christa have four children, Harper, Emma, Amelia, and another due in December.

“I’m overjoyed to join the faculty of Oklahoma Baptist University and the Hobbs School. I have a deep love for teaching in a Christian liberal arts environment, where we can help students not only train for a particular vocation, but also become particular kinds of people—well-rounded, thoughtful, and kingdom-minded,” Smith said. “Students trained in a liberal arts environment who can bring together head, heart and hands can develop into Christian laypeople, leaders and ministers who will make an impact on the world for the kingdom of God wherever God calls them to go.”