MILL VALLEY, Calif. (BP)–Rudolph D. Gonzalez, 45, has been appointed to a two-year term as associate professor of New Testament at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., effective Aug. 1.
“We are delighted to have such a solid leader join our faculty of men and women who are faithfully applying biblical devotion and scholarship to the practice of ministry,” said seminary President William O. Crews. “Rudy Gonzalez brings together the kind of sound thinking, biblical conviction and evangelistic passion that is part of Christian leadership in the future.”
Gonzalez currently serves as assistant professor of New Testament and Greek at Criswell College in Dallas and as adjunct professor of religion at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas. He also was a graduate research and teaching assistant at Baylor University in Waco.
He expects to compete his doctoral dissertation in biblical studies at Baylor University next year. He received a master of theology with an emphasis in the philosophy of religion at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, a master of divinity with an emphasis in biblical languages at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, and a bachelor of arts in biblical studies from Criswell College. In addition, he has participated in Oxford University’s summer study program in biblical hermeneutics.
While teaching in the Dallas and Waco region of Texas, he was pastor of the Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana from 1994-95. Ordained in 1975 by First Baptist Church of Hobbs, N.M., Gonzalez was pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Hobbs. He also has served as co-pastor of New Life Baptist Church in Garland, Texas. While studying at Princeton, he started the first Spanish- language work at a local church in that area.
Gonzalez told seminary officials he is “excited not only by the role in the seminary but by the opportunity to get to know Baptist work in northern California and to be involved in the work of churches there.”
He has written Spanish- language curriculum materials for LifeWay Christian Resources (formerly Sunday School Board) of the Southern Baptist Convention and for the Baptist General Convention of Texas and edited the synoptic gospel portion of a sermon project on digital video disc.
Gonzalez also has made major presentations to organizations such as the Pew Charitable Trust, Hispanic Baptist Theological Seminary, Campus Crusade for Christ, Convencion Bautista Mexicana de Texas, Dallas Theological Seminary and the Southwest Regional Society of Biblical Literature.
He is a member of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature and the Asociacion Para La Educacion Teologica Hispana.
Gonzalez and his wife, Virginia, have one son, Rudolf Uriah.
