Oliver Crisp Accepts New Position at St. Andrews

Oliver Crisp, professor of systematic theology, has accepted the position of professor analytic theology as a member of the Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology in the School of Divinity, University of St. Andrews effective September 1, 2019. We receive the news of Dr. Crisp’s opportunity with enthusiasm for him while a loss for the Fuller community.

Describing this decision as “a rollercoaster,” Dr. Crisp reflected about the Fuller faculty community: “It has often seemed to me that Fuller is an idea, not a place. But I think it is also a community of people. You are that community. Over the course of my time here we have endlessly wrung our hands in innumerable faculty meetings about how we aren’t this or that sort of community, and about how we need to improve in various ways to be a better, more welcoming, hospitable Seminary. Those are good things to worry about, I think. But only communities worry about some perceived lack of community. We aren’t perfect, but we are a community of scholars and pastors. I am so grateful for this community. For all the fun we have had, and the good things we have done together. I am glad to have been a part of it for these past 8 years. Thank you for welcoming this Englishman into your midst, and for making him feel at home.”

Dr. Crisp joined Fuller’s faculty in 2011. While on the faculty at Fuller, Dr. Crisp headed up a major $2 million, three-year research project entitled “Prayer, Love, and Human Nature: Analytic Theology for Theological Formation,” funded through the generosity of the John Templeton Foundation. Along with Fred Sanders of Biola University, Dr. Crisp initiated the Los Angeles Theology Conferences, which are held at Biola and Fuller in alternate years; the conference proceedings are published annually by Zondervan Academic. Dr. Crisp is also an editor of the Journal of Analytic Theology, and coeditor with professor Michael Rea of the Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology, published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Crisp has also been the William H. Schiede Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton (2008-9), and has previously been a Crosson Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Religion (2004-5) at Notre Dame, a fellowship he will take up again in the Winter and Spring of 2019, where he work on a book entitled Substitution and Atonement, which is under contract with Baker Academic.

Please join us in praying for and supporting Dr. Crisp as he and his family prepare for his transition from Fuller Seminary. The Fuller community will miss his academic scholarship, collegial friendship, and British sensibilities.