Hi. My name is Josh. However you ended up here, thanks for visiting!
Whenever I stumble onto a new website, one of my first clicks I make is to the author’s “about” page. And here you are! (We must be kindred spirits.) When I arrive, I am generally hoping to learn a few things before I dig too deeply: who is this person? where did they go to school? what’s their theological bent? what kind of work are they doing? why should I listen to them?
To satisfy all of you (immensely wise) people like me, I’ll get right to it.
First, let me tell you the important stuff that is, sadly, often relegated to throwaway line at the bottom of the page: I’m married to Kate, and together, we have two boys, Abe (11) and Jude (9), and a dog named Porter. The boys are our pride and joy. (Porter is probably a close third for Kate. Note the specificity of the previous line.)
Vocationally, I am a full-time, PhD’d minister, currently serving a theologically progressive, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church that I helped to plant in Salisbury, Maryland. It’s called The Restoration Project (TRP).
My educational history, I’ll be honest, is a bit of a mess, and not at all indicative of the sort of person I have become. But as Richard Rohr likes to say, it all belongs.
Against my parents’ wishes, I attended a super conservative Bible college (just in case I need to differentiate my alma mater from the many, many super liberal Bible colleges out there), where I attained a highly marketable degree in “biblical education.” From there, I enrolled in a conservative Presbyterian seminary in Philadelphia. (I’m not Presbyterian.)
I went there because (1) it was close to home, (2) some of my favorite, especially nerdy, undergrad professors studied there, and (3) the school prided itself in its use of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament for all of its biblical instruction, which was a big draw for me. In fact, I can say that learning Hebrew over a 3 month, summer intensive, changed the direction of my life.
After finishing up a Master’s degree, I decided to stick around for a PhD. (Potential grad students, don’t ever do this. It’s stupid. Go somewhere else for your terminal degree.) I guess it worked out, but only because my doctoral supervisor at the time—the inestimable, now-super famous, Peter Enns of The Bible for Normal People podcast fame—was being asked to leave by the theological faculty. We were warned, and I ended up jumping ship.
Of the few lifelines I could find on short notice, Fuller Theological Seminary, provided the best fit. So my wife, Kate, and I packed up our stuff and headed across country to Pasadena, California. Nearly 8 years later—a time period that included many visits to In-n-Out Burger, some teaching, our eventual move back to the East Coast after I completed coursework and passed my exams, a few years of dissertation writing while teaching high school Bible and planting a church, and most importantly, the birth of our first son—I finally finished my PhD in Old Testament studies, under the patient tutelage of John Goldingay. (It’s at this point, if I’m reading someone else’s “about” page, I begin to google to see if their dissertation was published. I’ll save you the time. A slightly revised version of my work became The Storied Ethics of the Thanksgiving Psalms. My mom and 5 Psalms studies nerds bought a copy.) (Jokes.) (Sort of.)
Since then, I have managed to keep my foot in the door of the academic world, as an adjunct seminary instructor for a few institutions. Currently, I am teaching Old Testament and Hebrew courses for BSK Theological Seminary (formerly the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky). I was also able to reconnect with Pete and Jared Byas (a former classmate) after The Bible for Normal People podcast blew up, and write Psalms for Normal People as part of their ongoing commentary series. I also contributed a chapter on Psalms for their forthcoming children’s Bible, God’s Stories as Told by God’s Children.
My main work, though, is pastoring TRP.
It’s a unique community, and I’m immensely proud to serve these risk-taking, empathetic, thoughtful, and considerate, theological black sheep in our rural context. The things I write here are for them and others like them—namely, people open to change, willing to go where they are led, and not too stubborn to say, “Maybe I had that wrong … let’s rethink it.”