Recently installed third dean of Campbell Divinity School talks about his calling, his Campbell experience and his vision for the school in his new role
On Sept. 16, Dr. Barry Jones was formally installed as the third dean of Campbell University’s Divinity School. A native North Carolinian and Campbell graduate, Jones came back to his alma mater to teach in 2000 after earning his Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Semitic studies from Duke University.
On Sept. 23, Jones sat down for a 40-minute interview to talk about his college days and his calling to ministry, his decision to come back to Campbell to teach and his vision for the Divinity School going forward as dean.
Question: Before you were ever dean of Campbell University’s Divinity School and a professor at Campbell, you were a student here. Take us back to that time, and tell us why you chose to come here for your undergraduate degree.
Jones: When I came to Campbell in 1981, I was a religion major, because as a high school student, I sensed a call to ministry. That’s why I chose Campbell. The seed of my teaching calling happened at Campbell because of my professors. I saw in them, first, a commitment to excellence in their subject areas. Second, a real genuine concern for students. I felt their personal concern for me. And then third, they were all people who served the church outside of school. They taught, they preached, they were interim pastors in churches. And so I had a clear picture of what a meaningful teaching ministry could look like.
It took several years for that to really become focused, but that was my first introduction.
In the 80s, Campbell had a religion major and a pre-seminary track, but no Divinity School [the school opened its doors in 1996]. And at that time, most religion majors went to one of the six Southern Baptist seminaries.
Question: You studied Biblical Hebrew for your Ph.D. and taught Old Testament courses as a professor. What drew you to that part of the academic side of religious studies?
Jones: There’s a Campbell connection there. When I was in seminary at Southeastern Seminary, I was the youth minister at Memorial Baptist Church here in Buies Creek. And the church member was Dr. Stanley McQuade. Dr. McQuade was a professor in the law school. He was also a medical doctor and he was an ordained Methodist minister. He did it all.
And when Dr. McQuade told you something, you paid attention. And he said, “Barry, you have to study Hebrew. It’s the key to the whole Bible. Once you understand Hebrew, you can understand the Old Testament from the inside, not the outside.”
And then the Greek of the New Testament is influenced by the translation of the Old Testament into Greek. He said Hebrew is the key to understanding the whole Bible. And so I took his advice. I took a Hebrew class and found that I had a real knack for it and that he was right — the Old Testament to me was just a strange part of the Bible, but studying the language it was written in, I got a sense of it from the inside and it was really transformational.
Most of classical Hebrew is contained in the Old Testament. So it’s a limited corpus and you can learn quite a bit with not a great vocabulary. New Testament Greek, for example, is connected to a corpus of classical Greek that’s very extensive. But the other advantage of Hebrew for me is I can get a sense of the whole of classical Hebrew.
Question: The Divinity School was still in its infancy when you came back in 2000 to teach at Campbell. What excited you about this new school when you took the job at Campbell?
Jones: As an undergraduate student, I experienced the Divinity School before the Divinity School existed because the culture of the school — the fact that it’s student centered and the fact that it is ministry focused — was very attractive to me, and it was very familiar from studying here before. Before I came to Campbell, I taught at Mars Hill University, and I taught the undergraduate level. That was exciting, but on a small undergraduate faculty, you’re teaching a lot of different things.
At the Divinity School, I was teaching graduate students preparing for ministry, and I was focused on the literature of the Old Testament and the Hebrew language. So that was very appealing. I got to go deep with my students in the subject areas that I had studied in graduate school.
Dr. Michael Cogdill was the founding dean of the Divinity School, and he greatly influenced the vision for the school. And I think the current atmosphere of the school that exists today — the mission to bring together devotion to God, academic excellence and the skills of ministry and weave all three throughout the curriculum — that was a new trend in divinity schools and seminary education.
Previously, seminaries assumed everybody had a prayer life and a devotional life, and the focus was on the academic content with some additional courses in ministry skills. But when Campbell was founded, schools were realizing that they had to be intentional about the spiritual life of students, because ministry is intense. And if you don’t have a healthy spiritual life and a healthy emotional life, the intensity of ministry will squeeze that out of you.There’s a real danger of burnout, and our Divinity School has a strong academic component, but it is not purely intellectual.
To practice ministry, you have to have relational skills, and you have to have practical ministry skills — the professional aspect of ministry. And because Campbell was starting with a clean slate, it could design the curriculum and the courses to integrate those three areas.
I think this is a goal at all of Campbell’s graduate schools. The emphasis at Campbell is on being ready on Day 1 to practice the profession, and the Divinity School has benefited from that Campbell tradition.
The other thing that Dr. Cogdill and Dr. Bruce Powers, who was his associate dean, gave to the school was the mission statement. And it’s three big commitments.
No. 1, commitment to follow Jesus Christ. No. 2, a commitment to the Bible as our guide for life and ministry and how we hear from God and how we serve God. And then No. 3 is the ministry skills. So those three areas are embedded in the mission statement.
The other thing the mission statement does is if you can be committed to those three priorities, then we can work together even if we don’t agree on every specific detail under that umbrella. And that created a sense of community. So even when we are disagreeing with each other, we know each other and we know our big commitments.
We know we’re working toward the same goals, and we are disagreeing with a person that we are on the same team with. We’re not disagreeing with a label that we stick on someone so that we can distance ourselves from it. So that set the tone for the whole school. And [recently retired Dean] Dr. Andy Wakefield was a great steward of that vision for 15 years.
Question: What are some of the challenges for the Divinity School going forward and what are some of your short-term goals as the new dean?
Jones: What has changed about the Divinity School is the world outside the Divinity school. A smaller percentage of people are active in church than they were 30 years ago or 15 years ago. Collectively as a society, we’ve been through 9/11, the Great Recession, a lot of political division and the rise of social media, which has a business model of dividing people to capture our attention — to slice it and dice it and sell it to the highest bidder for advertisers.
So there are a lot of headwinds and that’s affected the Divinity School. Fewer people are going to seminary and divinity school, and fewer people are sensing a call to ministry. So we have to respond to that environment. We have to be more intentional about our recruiting.
I want us to engage our alumni, because they have been our best source of advertising. Divinity School graduates tell us they have a very positive opinion [of the school]; they feel a sense of community here. They have great preparation for ministry, and so we need to be clear about telling that story and getting the word out. That’s challenging, because it’s a saturated media environment, and we’re sending out a message into an already crowded marketplace. So we have to be very focused and intentional on that.
In terms of what I want for the Divinity School, I’m a Campbell graduate. I really want to lean into the resources of Campbell University. Campbell is the Divinity School’s greatest asset, and we’re coming up on 30 years. Campbell University’s been around for 138 years. It has a big footprint and a lot of alumni, and it has tremendous academic programs.
So I want the Divinity School to play a positive role on the campus. I want the Divinity School to contribute to the spiritual community on campus. I’d like for us to be encouragers of other people in living out their faith and living out their calling no matter what their job or subject area is. And so I think that’s very important for the school.
Question: You were officially installed as dean on Sept. 16, and you oversaw your first commissioning service as dean on that day. You’ve been to many of these events, but this was your first one in this new role. What was that moment like for you?
Jones: The commissioning service and the installation service was a great celebration of the Divinity School and the impact that it’s had on so many people. The commissioning service really represents the focus of the Divinity School. We are here to encourage and equip people to answer God’s call. We don’t take it lightly that people are willing to say, “God has called me into this ministry.” That needs to be affirmed and celebrated. And the commissioning service is the time.
When we formally do that, we invite students, pastors and their family members, and when the student receives the Divinity School pin, they look out and they see their family and their supporters standing up for it. And that goes a long way. People never forget it. It never gets old.
I’ve been to two a year for most of the years I’ve been here, and it’s always inspiring. I think that’s really the heart of the school. We are here to support people in following their call.
And for me, it was a moment of great affirmation. It was all of these people who love Campbell saying, “We are here to help you.” And so you can’t help but feel inspired and supported. It’s a day I’ll remember for the rest of my life, and I do think it speaks to the mission of the school and it’s really meeting a need.
[Campbell President] Dr. William Downs spoke to this very eloquently in his greetings at the commissioning service in saying that the mission of the Divinity School is an important part of the mission of Campbell University. It’s very meaningful to be a part of something bigger than yourself that helps you feel like you’re fulfilling God’s purpose in the world.
Bonus Question: One of your big hobbies is cycling. How did you get involved in the sport, and how often do you ride?
Jones: It’s a way to stay in shape. What I like about cycling is, No. 1, I can remember what it was like to be a kid riding a bicycle, and I still get that same feeling. And then I can ride a bike for an hour, two hours and still recover and do it again tomorrow. Whereas, with some other form of exercise like jogging, for example, after 30 minutes, I’m done. Cycling is easy to recover from, and it’s fun while you’re doing it.
I’ve ridden in the multiple sclerosis fundraising bike ride for over 20 years. And it’s a great event. There’s usually 1,200 to 2,000 people. The one I participate in is in New Bern, and it’s a festive atmosphere. There are all kinds of volunteers, and it’s a great cause. I started doing it because a friend invited me, but then I found out all about all these people who I know who deal with multiple sclerosis. And so that has been very enjoyable and meaningful.
And it’s usually in September, which means I have to ride and train the whole summer to get ready for it.