Rubel Shelly | |
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Born | Thomas Rubel Shelly November 27, 1945 |
Nationality | United States |
Education | Harding University Vanderbilt University |
Occupations |
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Employer | Lipscomb University |
Rubel Shelly is an author, minister, and professor at Lipscomb University. He is the former president of Rochester College .
Shelly began as an instructor in the department of Religion and Philosophy at Freed-Hardeman University in 1975. In 1978, Shelly began preaching for the Ashwood Church of Christ, which later merged with the Green Hills Church of Christ to become the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ, which in turn later became known as the Family of God at Woodmont Hills, in Nashville, Tennessee, where he continued until 2005. From 1979 to 1980 while he worked to complete his graduate work at Vanderbilt University, he served as a graduate assistant in the Department of Philosophy. From 1981 to 1983, he was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Lipscomb University.
When Shelly stepped down from the pulpit in 2005, he began teaching again as a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Rochester University, in Rochester Hills, Michigan. He was named the President of Rochester College in May 2009. He also served as a co-minister for the Bristol Road Church of Christ in Flint, Michigan. [1] In late 2012, Shelly announced that he would be stepping from his role as President at Rochester College by September 2013. [2]
Shelley is known primarily as a preacher. He has been involved in debates and academic lectures on Christian apologetics, ethics, and medical ethics. He has also served with such groups as the AIDS Education Committee of the American Red Cross.
Shelly's theological stance on several important issues abruptly shifted around 1986 from traditional Church of Christ theology. He began to voice a radical plea for Ecumenism, as indicated by his book, I Just Want to Be a Christian. He had started out as a boy preacher in the Churches of Christ, writing several books containing what some have called "sound teaching", yet eventually Shelly became disenchanted with what he has called a "language of exclusion." [3] "Out of my own spiritual evolution, I've tried to adopt a much more Christ-like spirit and not be so sectarian and isolationist", Shelly said. [4]
Now, Shelly pursues a unifying vision "more nearly the ideal of the early American Restoration Movement concept and experience than what [he] was born into." [3] He critiques his former colleagues for trying to "decide who's in and who's out based on some list. We're very anticreedal in churches of Christ and Christian churches, meaning we won’t publish that list; we are more insidious in that we have unpublished lists of what lets you be "in" or "out" of our local churches. That's simply wrongheaded." [3] In The Second Incarnation, Shelly and Randy Harris claim that this move is anachronistic and leads to doctrinal error, because no church has ever achieved perfection, and in any case, one cannot and should not attempt to recreate the first century Church. [5] : 371–372
Shelly has also co-edited and co-founded two important journals, Spiritual Sword in 1969 with Thomas B. Warren and Wineskins with Mike Cope.
Books
Articles
Restorationism, also known as Restitutionism or Christian primitivism, is a religious perspective according to which the early beliefs and practices of the followers of Jesus were either lost or adulterated after his death and required a "restoration". It is a view that often "seeks to correct faults or deficiencies by appealing to the primitive church as normative model".
The Restoration Movement is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) of the early 19th century. The pioneers of this movement were seeking to reform the church from within and sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament."
The Churches of Christ, also commonly known as the Church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations located around the world. Typically, their distinguishing beliefs are that of the necessity of baptism for salvation and the prohibition of musical instruments in worship. Many such congregations identify themselves as being nondenominational. The Churches of Christ arose in the United States from the Restoration Movement of 19th-century Christians who declared independence from denominations and traditional creeds. They sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the original church described in the New Testament."
Barton Warren Stone was an American evangelist during the early 19th-century Second Great Awakening in the United States. First ordained a Presbyterian minister, he and four other ministers of the Washington Presbytery resigned after arguments about doctrine and enforcement of policy by the Kentucky Synod. This was in 1803, after Stone had helped lead the mammoth Cane Ridge Revival, a several-day communion season attended by nearly 20,000 persons.
Max Lucado is an American author and minister at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.
Robert Henry Boll was a German-born American preacher in the Churches of Christ. Boll is most known for advancing a premillennialist eschatology within the Churches of Christ, in articles written during his editorship of the front page of the Gospel Advocate from 1909 to 1915 and after 1915 in Word and Work, leading to a dispute which was a significant source of division within the Churches of Christ in the 1930s. Boll was one of the most influential advocates for the premillennial point of view, and was most singularly opposed by Foy E. Wallace Jr. By the end of the 20th century, however, the divisions caused by the debate over premillennialism were diminishing, and in the 2000 edition of the directory Churches of Christ in the United States, published by Mac Lynn, congregations holding premillennial views were no longer listed separately.
Grover Cleveland Brewer (1884–1956) was a leader in the Churches of Christ in the US. He was said to be "among the giants of the brotherhood".
Douglas A. Foster is an American author and scholar known for his work on the history of Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.
Everett Ferguson currently serves as Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. He is author of numerous books on early Christian studies and served as co-editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies.
Abilene Christian University (ACU) is a private Christian university in Abilene, Texas. It was founded in 1906 as Childers Classical Institute. It is affiliated with Churches of Christ.
Thomas Bratton Warren was an American professor of philosophy of religion and apologetics at the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, and was an important philosopher and theologian in the Churches of Christ during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Edward William Fudge was an American Christian theologian and lawyer, best known for his book The Fire That Consumes in which he argues for an annihilationist Biblical interpretation of Hell. He has been called "one of the foremost scholars on hell" by The Christian Post. He is the subject of the 2012 independent film Hell and Mr. Fudge.
Abilene Christian University Press, also known as ACU Press, is an Abilene, Texas-based university press that is connected with Abilene Christian University. Since being formed it has released or acquired 456 titles and as of 2013 the press releases, on average, thirty-six titles per year. The press is a member of the Association of University Presses. The press publishes works in the areas of "Christianity and Literature; Faith-Based Higher Education; History and Theology of the Stone-Campbell Movement; Texas History and Culture." Leafwood Publishers is an imprint of ACU Press.
Darryl Tippens is an American academic administrator and University Distinguished Scholar of Faith, Learning, and Literature (retired) at Abilene Christian University (ACU). He was provost of Pepperdine University from January 2001 until July 2014, and before that had served at ACU.
C. Leonard Allen is the Dean of Bible at Lipscomb University.
Don Finto is a figure in the movement among evangelicals to support the evangelism of the Jewish people.
Larry M. James is an American social worker and the former President and CEO of CitySquare located in Dallas, Texas.
Sally Gary is a Christian speaker and author on faith and sexuality. She is founder of CenterPeace, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that fosters belonging for LGBTQ people in the Church, as well as provides resources for Christian leaders, parents, and organizations to respond in Christ-like ways to the LGBTQ community. Gary is the subject of the 2020 biographical documentary Loves God, Likes Girls by Film Mavericks.
Gary Holloway is the executive director of the World Convention of Churches of Christ.
Lillie Delenzia Cypert served as an American missionary in Japan from October 1917 to December 1943 when she returned to the United States as part of a civilian exchange. Along with Sarah Shepherd Andrews and Hettie Lee Ewing, other single missionaries, she contributed greatly to the setting up of permanent Japanese congregations of the Churches of Christ.