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 Im 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 embeddedthis 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. Were always talking about what we read together. I also enjoy focusing on material culture, whether thats 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.
Why pastoral qualifications in the Bible arent really about gender. Baptist News Global, June 26, 2024.
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.
Gender, Knighthood, and Spiritual Imagination in Henry Susos 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 Searles Analysis of Declarations. Perichoresis 15.1 (2017): 101-116.
