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SBTS appoints renowned early church scholar to faculty
May 14, 2007
By Jeff Robinson
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary this week added prominent church historian Michael A.G. Haykin to its faculty, appointing him as professor of biblical spirituality and church history.
A prolific author and noted scholar in areas of early church history, Baptist history and Christian spirituality, Haykin will pioneer Southern's innovative new Ph.D. and D.Min. programs in biblical spirituality, will teach and supervise doctoral students in patristic history, and will head the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at Southern, which will host events and publish materials related to Baptist history.
Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Seminary, said that Haykin's broad expertise in history and biblical spirituality is well known across the evangelical world.
"I sometimes wonder if Michael Haykin is one scholar or a conspiracy of brilliant minds masquerading as one man," Moore said. "After all, he is a pacesetter in the very different fields of spiritual formation, Baptist studies, patristic history, and beyond. He is one of the most recognized scholars in the world in each of these fields, having written and lectured extensively in each area, even while serving as a seminary administrator, popular conference speaker, and leader within the Canadian Baptist churches."
Haykin has served as principal and professor of church history and spirituality at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Toronto, Canada, since 2003. Previously, he was a professor at Heritage Theological Seminary from 1 and at Central Baptist Seminary from 1.
Haykin has written numerous books on church history, historical theology and Baptist history including Kiffin, Knollys and Keach: Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage, Jonathan Edwards: The Holy Spirit in Revival and The Revived Puritan: The Spirituality of George Whitefield.
"I am thrilled with the appointment for many reasons," Haykin said. "What the Lord has been doing in the past fifteen years or so at Southern Seminary makes it a thrilling place, spiritually and academically, to be. I am thrilled to be joining men as colleagues whom I deeply admire, and some of whom I count among my closest friends. And I thrilled about the quality of students that I have seen at the school."
Haykin will team with Don Whitney, associate professor of biblical spirituality, in pioneering a new degree program in biblical spirituality that will offer both a doctor of philosophy and doctor of ministry in that field. He will also supervise doctoral students in church history, primarily in the field of patristic studies.
"Dr. Haykin's scholarly firepower and personal piety make him precisely the man to lead, along with Don Whitney, the only concentration of its kind on biblical spirituality in the evangelical world," Moore said.
"In a day when spiritual formation in the academy, and even in many of our churches, veers from dead rationalism to hyper-mystical enthusiasm, Dr. Haykin's combination of a Spirit-renewed mind and a Spirit-filled heart is exactly what is needed to set the pace to train pastors to lead congregations toward biblical discipleship."
Raised Roman Catholic, Haykin was converted to Christ in 1974 out of a radical leftist brand of New Age spirituality. Sensing a call to vocational ministry, he attended Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto from 1974 to 1982, earning a doctorate in patristics.
It is important for Christians to study the writings of the church fathers because they were the first interpreters of Scripture, Haykin noted.
"For that reason their witness cannot be ignored," he said. "The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, was hammered out by them--from its New Testament witness--and the resultant creedal statement, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, stands as a landmark theologically.
"On the other hand, they cannot be placed on the level of Scripture--Holy Scripture stands above them, and their thought must be measured by the Word of God."
Haykin and his wife Alison married in 1976 and have two children, Victoria and Nigel.
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