Dr. Jacob Randolph
Assistant Professor of History of Christianity
and Academic Director of the Oklahoma Campus
Phone: 405-778-3821
Email:
Curriculum Vitae
Education
PhD in History of Christianity, Reformation Studies, Baylor University
Master of Arts Church History, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Master of Arts New Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
BA in Religion, Oklahoma Baptist University
Denomination
Baptist
Discipline or Specialty
Late Medieval/Early Modern Europe; the Reformation; Religion and Gender; Cultural History
Disciplinary/Research Interests
Masculinity in the Reformation; chivalry and religion in medieval Europe; social imaginaries and religious identity; American evangelicalism and culture; the function of polemic in self-fashioning; the cultural boundaries and political functions of “Christian orthodoxy”
What do you hope your students come away with when they leave your classroom?
Regardless of what course I’m teaching, I hope students take with them a better understanding of the historical craft in the context of the academic study of Christianity. I want students to appreciate the ever-changing relationship between Christianity and power in society, and to recognize that Christianity is always culturally embedded—this is a feature, not a bug, of the Christian religion. Ultimately, I hope students come away with a renewed sense of humility about their own place in religious history and a posture of generosity and charity toward others.
What is your teaching style?
I love working with primary sources as well as introducing students to the work historians are doing now. We do a lot of reading in my classes! But this reading is never done in isolation. We’re always talking about what we read together. I also enjoy focusing on material culture, whether that’s a painting by Caravaggio or a fabric talisman worn by Coptic Christians. So my courses are a mixture of lecture, discussion about texts, and exploration of the visual worlds of the past.
Representative Courses Taught
HST 301 and 302 – Introduction to Christian Traditions I and II
HST 414/514 – Spiritual Traditions and Ministry
Recent Publications
“Teaching the Faith and Fomenting Contempt in the Reformation,” The Anxious Bench, September 20, 2024. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2024/09/teaching-the-faith-and-fomenting-contempt-in-the-reformation/
“Why pastoral qualifications in the Bible aren’t really about gender.” Baptist News Global, June 26, 2024. https://baptistnews.com/article/why-pastoral-qualifications-in-the-bible-arent-really-about-gender/
“Playing for God: The American Play Movement and Missionary Education in the Early Twentieth Century.” Fides et Historia 55 (2024): 55-74.
“CRT is a useful tool in analyzing Baptist history on race.” Baptist News Global, January 19, 2024. https://baptistnews.com/article/crt-is-a-useful-tool-in-analyzing-baptist-history-on-race/
“Gender, Knighthood, and Spiritual Imagination in Henry Suso’s Life of the Servant.” Church History 91 (2022): 1-19.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Tough and Tender: Theology and Masculinity in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal.” Baptist History & Heritage 56.1 (2021): 39-59.*
*Winner, 2022 Julian Gwyn Essay Prize in Baptist and Anabaptist History and Thought, Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies, Acadia University.
“‘Church Sweat’: Luther, Karlstadt, and the Reformation of Academic Masculinity.” Church History and Religious Culture 100.1-2 (2020): 319-341.
“Salvation and Speech Act: Reading Luther with the Aid of Searle’s Analysis of Declarations.” Perichoresis 15.1 (2017): 101-116.
