By a recent action of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Mark Medley has been promoted to Professor of Theology at Baptist Seminary of Kentucky. Dr. Medley began his service with BSK as Associate Professor in the fall of 2007, and teaches in the areas of Christian Theology, Christian Ethics, and Theology and Culture. According to Academic Dean Dalen Jackson, Medley has been for the past ten years, “the theological anchor who has guided the development of BSK and informed the theological imagination of students and faculty alike.”
During his time at BSK, Medley has authored numerous book chapters, articles, and book reviews, as well as making a wide range of presentations in both academic and church settings. In 2014, he edited the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion’s Festschrift (a volume of articles presented as a tribute) for Dr. Molly Marshall, who had served as his doctoral supervisor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Medley serves on the editorial boards of the journals Perspectives in Religious Studies and Review and Expositor, and is currently a member of the Justice Commission of the Kentucky Council of Churches and the Commission on Christian Doctrine and Unity of the Baptist World Alliance. During his sabbatical in the fall of 2016, he served as Theologian-in-Residence at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Kentucky.
Dr. Medley is known throughout the BSK community and beyond for his deep passion for the discipline of theology. This pursuit of theological understanding is not for the sake of learning alone, however—he views his calling to ministry as a calling to be a teacher of theology of and for the service of the church. As he describes it, theology involves seeing differently, forming new habits of heart and mind, and joining the very conversation of God the Father, Christ, and Spirit. While this theological exploration often leads to engagement with students on matters of liturgy and worship, it leads as well to spirited conversations about popular culture, such as the television series The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Faculty also draw from the deep well of Medley’s theological passion. “Few faculty writing projects or classroom innovations happen at BSK without consultation with Mark,” says Jackson, “and he is gracious to share his enthusiasm and theological insight both in informal contexts and in our formal faculty work. It is no exaggeration to say that the very direction of the Seminary has been deeply affected by his careful attention to the language we use and the initiatives we have prioritized.”
Medley is currently at work on a book tentatively titled, Ordinarily Radical: Baptism, Martyrdom, and Christian Life. He and his wife, Maria, live in Georgetown, Kentucky, and their son Jacob is a first-year student at Bellarmine University in Louisville.
