Meet Our Staff

Rev. Dr. Douglas R. Sharp, Interim Minister

Ordained in the American Baptist Churches USA in 1975, Douglas Sharp has served for more than   thirty years as a theological educator and administrator. From 1973 until 1984, he served on the faculty and administration at the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California. In 1985, he joined the faculty and staff at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois.

 

While at Northern, he served in several administrative posts, including Director of Masters Studies and Dean of the Seminary. His areas of teaching integrate the disciplines of theology and the social sciences, with an emphasis on sociology and congregational studies. Over the years at Northern, he taught in both the masters and doctoral programs, including supervising many doctoral students on their final project for their D.Min. degree.

 

In 2008, he joined the staff at Protestants for the Common Good as Dean of the Academy, with responsibilities for designing, staffing, and delivering a curriculum for faith-based social justice advocacy training. Over eighty participants have completed the thirty-hour training, coming from all areas of the Chicago metropolitan region.

 

Sharp has worked with community and church groups as well as non-profit organizations in the areas of strategic planning, program assessment and development, church and community relations, and racial reconciliation. He has served on ordination commissions in both the American Baptist Churches of the West and American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago. He was instrumental in launching Moscow Theological Seminary in Russia in 1993, and for many years was a regular teacher there and member of the seminary’s board of directors.

 

He is the author of two books, The Hermeneutics of Election (University of America Press, 1990) and No Partiality: The Idolatry of Race and the New Humanity (InterVarsity Press, 2002), along with many reviews and articles. He received his B.A. from William Jewell College in 1971, his M.Div. from the American Baptist Seminary of the West in 1975, and his Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in 1988. Sharp blogs on faith and public life at academyforthecommongood.blogspot.com/.

 

For information on the Transition or the Senior Minister Search Committee, click here.