Houston Baptist U. Meets Orthodoxy

The philosopher John Mark Reynolds, founder and director of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola, is moving to Houston Baptist University to become its provost. Why is this so interesting, at least to me? Two reasons:

1) JMR is a convert to Orthodox Christianity. An Orthodox Christian is going to be one of the top figures at a Baptist university in Texas. Think about that.

2) He was recruited by HBU president Robert Sloan, a far-thinking Baptist who had to leave the presidency of Baylor because of internal  Baylor/Texas Baptist politics, but who managed in his tenure to bring some high-caliber Roman Catholic intellectual firepower (e.g., Thomas Hibbs) to Waco. Sloan is a man who understands better than many in religious higher education the cultural situation Christians find themselves in,  and why creative alliances with small-o orthodox Christians — Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox — have to be made. He’s just hired as his provost another Christian intellectual who gets it.