| Rubel Shelly | |
| Birth Name: | Thomas Rubel Shelly |
| Birth Date: | 27 November 1945 |
| Nationality: | United States |
| Employer: | Lipscomb University |
Dr. Rubel Shelly is an author, minister, and professor at Lipscomb University. He is the former president of Rochester University .
Shelly began as an instructor in the department of Religion and Philosophy at Freed-Hardeman University in 1975. In 1978, Shelly began preaching as Senior Minister for the Family of God at Woodmont Hills, formerly known as the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ, in Nashville, Tennessee where he continued until 2005. While preaching at Woodmont Hills, he also taught at Lipscomb University, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and Tennessee State University. From 1979 to 1980 while he worked to complete his graduate work at Vanderbilt University, he served as a graduate assistant in the Department of Philosophy. From 1981 to 1983, he was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Lipscomb University. In 1986, while continuing his education at Vanderbilt University, he taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine (Medical Ethics) until 1988. From 2000 to 2004, he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tennessee State University.[1]
When he stepped down from the pulpit in 2005, he began teaching again as a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Rochester University, in Rochester Hills, Michigan. He was named the President of Rochester University in May 2009. He also served as a co-minister for the Bristol Road Church of Christ in Flint, Michigan.[2] In late 2012, Shelly announced that he would be stepping from his role as President at Rochester College by September 2013.[3]
He is known primarily as a preacher. Shelly has been involved in debates and academic lectures on Christian apologetics, ethics, and medical ethics. Shelly has also served with such groups as the AIDS Education Committee of the American Red Cross.
Shelly's theological stance on several important issues abruptly shifted around 1986 from traditional Church of Christ theology. He began to voice a radical plea for Ecumenism, as indicated by his book, I Just Want to Be a Christian. Shelly had started out as a boy preacher in the Churches of Christ, writing several books containing what some have called "sound teaching", yet eventually Shelly became disenchanted with what he has called a "language of exclusion."[4] "Out of my own spiritual evolution, I've tried to adopt a much more Christ-like spirit and not be so sectarian and isolationist", Shelly said.[5]
Now, he pursues a unifying vision "more nearly the ideal of the early American Restoration Movement concept and experience than what [he] was born into."[4] He critiques his former colleagues for trying to "decide who's in and who's out based on some list. We're very anticreedal in churches of Christ and Christian churches, meaning we won’t publish that list; we are more insidious in that we have unpublished lists of what lets you be "in" or "out" of our local churches. That's simply wrongheaded."[4] Though these calls for unity do, in fact, echo Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, in other ways Shelly has disengaged from the central tenet of the Restoration Movement: that the modern Church must restore the first century Church. In The Second Incarnation, Shelly and Randy Harris claim that this move is anachronistic and leads to doctrinal error, because no church has ever achieved perfection, and in any case, one cannot and should not attempt to recreate the first century Church.[6]
Shelly has also co-edited and co-founded two important journals, Spiritual Sword in 1969 with Dr. Thomas B. Warren and Wineskins (more recently) with Mike Cope.
Rubel Shelly was inducted in 2007 into the Restoration Forum's Honor Roll of Unity, an award "given to people who are recognized for their love for those in the Christian fellowship and for their noble efforts to heal the divisions of the past and build unity."[7]
Because Churches of Christ are strongly congregational, there are only a few ways to rise to prominence: publications, lectureships, holding the pulpit of a large congregation, and by outside recognition. Rubel Shelly has written many influential books, cited by others in the Restoration Movement, and he routinely appears at lectureships sponsored by Universities and colleges affiliated with the Church of Christ. Shelly has also been the preacher at one of the larger, more affluent churches for many years (Woodmont Hills Church in Nashville, Tennessee).
One measure of Shelly's national reputation is the fact that local and national journalists call on him as an expert about Church of Christ matters. An infamous example of this was when Nancy Grace of CNN asked Shelly on national television whether or not the Church of Christ is a cult. Many felt that Shelly did not have a chance to express himself fully (http://twocitiesblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/church-of-christ-minister-endures-cnn.html http://www.markaelrod.net/2006/03/29/i-watched-nancy-grace-tonight-and-i-feel-like-i-need-a-hot-shower http://www.travisstanley.net/archives/20060330/webdroppings-on-nancy/http://www.ocularfusion.net/?p=110). A text of the exchange can be found here: http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=326 Mike Cope was originally picked to be interviewed, as he is also one of the most prominent preachers in the Church of Christ http://www.preachermike.com/2006/03/29/nancy-grace.
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