Faculty

Brad Nassif teaches theology, spirituality and the Bible. He holds degrees from Protestant (Denver Seminary), Roman Catholic (Fordham University) and Eastern Orthodox (St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary) institutions. He is a specialist on Eastern Orthodoxy, and biblical interpretation in the early church. Dr. Nassif is a Lebanese American and member of the Antiochian Orthodox Church of Syria and North America.

Dr. Nassif strives to be a student-centered teacher. His goal is to help students acquire biblical “wisdom” in thought and life. He believes that a genuinely Christian education cultivates academic integrity, but also includes hands-on service and a life of prayer in the worshiping church. One of his favorite sayings comes from a Desert Father who said, “A theologian is one who prays truly, and he who prays truly is a theologian.”

His most recent interests focus on classical theology and spirituality in the early and Byzantine Church. He co-edited The Philokalia: Exploring a Classic Text in Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford University Press, 2011); authored Holy Land, Holy People: The Desert Fathers and Mothers (Zondervan, 2011); and edited New Perspectives on Historical Theology: Essays in Memory of John Meyendorff, (Eerdmans, 1996). The late Fr. John Meyendorff, his doctoral mentor at Fordham University, described Dr. Nassif as "a stable, personable scholar, an avid searcher and an indefatigable, persistent worker... whose enthusiasm is contagious..."

He is a former Director at Fuller Seminary and a Visiting Professor at Regent College (Vancouver, BC), the Patriarch Athenagoras Institute in the GTU (Berkeley) and the Pappas Institute for Patristic Studies (Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary, Brookline, MA). He is also a consultant for Time and Christianity Today magazines. An award-winning author, he has been quoted as an authority on the Orthodox Church for The New York Times. He has done television documentaries and has devoted much of his energy to the cause of ecumenism, understood as unity in the truth of the gospel. He has been a pioneer in introducing Orthodoxy to Protestant evangelicals, and has been a keynote speaker for international meetings sponsored by World Vision and the World Council of Churches. The New Republic described him as "the leading academic expert on Orthodox-Evangelical dialogue." For fun, he enjoys taking family trips and puttering around the house.

Joel Willitts, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in Biblical and Theological Studies. He has had a wide breath of experience within both the Christian community and academia. After graduating with a BS (’93) he spent 7 years in youth ministry in Texas, Florida and Illinois. He eventually earned a Th.M. (’00) and then a M.Phil. (’02) and Ph.D. (’07) from Cambridge University in England. Joel has published books, essays and journal articles in the areas of New Testament and the Dead Sea Scroll studies. Joel’s passion for student work has remained strong throughout his education and enjoys working with the college students at North Park. He is married to Karla (16 years) and they have twin toddlers, Zion and Mary.

Mary Veeneman has been Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University since 2008. She completed her Ph.D. in Systematic Theology at Fordham University (Bronx, NY) in 2009, where she also received an advanced certificate in health care ethics. Dr. Veeneman researches in the areas of theological method and theological ethics (particularly in the area of Catholic Social Teaching) and also engages in questions concerning religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue. She is currently working on a book on the theological methods of Karl Rahner and Avery Dulles in their post- Vatican II contexts and the ways in which their work can be brought into conversation with the work of evangelical theologians Stanley Grenz and Kevin Vanhoozer. At North Park, Dr. Veeneman teaches courses in contemporary Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, the history of Catholic and Protestant theology, and liberation and feminist theologies.

As a child growing up in a slum of New Delhi, where children were sold into slavery, Rajkumar Boaz Johnson experienced a chain of life-changing awakenings and came to view Jesus and his teachings as the answer to poverty and slavery in India and beyond. A dedicated instructor from a young age, Johnson has been teaching at the university level for 24 years.

As Professor and Chair in the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University, Johnson has fostered the generation of new ideas through faculty collaboration on journal articles, and worked to build a strong academic relationship with North Park Theological Seminary faculty. His courses represent a wide spectrum of topics, from "Introduction to the Bible" to "World Religions in Light of World Crisis Today".

Professor Johnson holds a B.A. in economics, M. Div. in New Testament studies, and Ph. D. in Hebrew Bible/theological studies. He lectures extensively on the topics of global slavery and human trafficking, evangelicalism and world religions, and Biblical principles of environmental stewardship. In addition, he is currently working on a book titled The Feminist Theology of the Wisdom Traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near Eastern Texts.

Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University. A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events throughout the USA and in Denmark and South Africa. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986).

McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. He is the author of more than thirty books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Paraclete, 2004), which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living. Recent books include Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us (Paraclete, 2005), The Story of the Christ (Baker, 2006), Praying with the Church (Paraclete, 2006), and The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete, 2007). A recent book, A Community called Atonement (Abingdon, 2007), has been nominated for the Grawameyer Award. He broadened his Jesus Creed project in writing a daily devotional: 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed (Paraclete, 2008). His studies in conversion were expanded with his newest book, Finding Faith, Losing Faith (Baylor, 2008), a book he co-authored with his former student Hauna Ondrey. His most recent books are The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008) and Fasting (Thomas Nelson, 2009). 

Forthcoming books include a commentary on James (Eerdmans, 2010). He is presently researching "gospel" in the earliest Christian communities.

Other books include Who Do My Opponents Say I am? (co-edited with Joseph Modica),Jesus and His Death (Baylor, 2005), A Light among the Gentiles (Fortress, 1992), A New Vision for Israel (Eerdmans, 1999), Turning to Jesus (Westminster John Knox, 2002), Galatians (Zondervan, 1993) and 1 Peter (Zondervan, 1996), Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels (Baker, 1988), and he is a co-editor with J.B. Green and I.H. Marshall of the award-winning The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP, 1992) as well as the co-editor, with J.D.G. Dunn, of The Historical Jesus in Current Study (Eisenbraun's, 2005). He regularly contributes chapter length studies to dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles for magazines and online webzines. McKnight's books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.

McKnight's award-winning blog, Jesus Creed, has been rated by Technorati.com as the number one site for Emerging Church and continues to increase in readership.

Scot McKnight was elected into the Hall of Honor at Cornerstone University in honor of his basketball accomplishments during his college career. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and one grandchild: Aksel Donovan Nelson McKnight.