Acadia Divinity College Welcomes Rev. Dr. D. Steven Porter and Dr.

Grace Au to the Faculty

The President, Dr. Anna Robbins, and Board of Trustees of Acadia Divinity College are pleased to announce the appointments of the Rev. Dr. D. Steven Porter as Assistant Professor of Church Innovation and Evangelism and Director of Doctoral Studies, and Dr. Grace W.Y. Au as Assistant Professor of New Testament Studies

Dr. D. Steven Porter earned a ThD in 2017 from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He also graduated with a Master of Divinity (1998) from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Since 2014, Steven has served as Coordinator of Global Missions, for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Decatur, Georgia, supervising evangelism, community development, and disaster response in 30 countries. He also has served on the steering committee of the Mission Leaders Forum of Christian Churches Together and on the Board of Directors of International Baptist Theological Seminary in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He presently chairs the Commission on Evangelism for the Baptist World Alliance. For more than 25 years, Steven has been committed to preparing Christian leaders through community engagement starting in urban ministry and later by facilitating intensive conversations on evangelism with churches. Steven has lectured on evangelism, mission, and global Christianity on the faculty of George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University and in adjunct roles for Duke University Divinity School and William Jewell College. His research and academic presentations have centred on reimagining the church’s witness in the present and future by studying its past. Steven is married to Dr. Jodi L. Porter, and together they have two children. Steven will begin at the College on July 1, 2023.

Associate Deans Appointed

Dr. Grace Au holds a PhD in New Testament and Christian Origins (2021), jointly awarded by the University of Edinburgh and the China Graduate School of Theology. She also earned a ThM in New Testament Studies (2017) and a Master of Christian Studies in Biblical Hermeneutics (2013) from the China Graduate School of Theology where she received the Theological Studies Award.

Most recently, Grace has held the tenure-track position of Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at the China Graduate School of Theology. Her area of expertise and research has centred on the New Testament, with an emphasis on Pauline Studies. In addition, her teaching interests include Early Christianity in its Jewish and Greco-Roman background, and sociolinguistic theory and hermeneutics in Biblical interpretation.

Grace is an active member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the European Association of Biblical Studies and has ministered amongst churches in Hong Kong. She is married to Rev. Caleb K.F. Cheng, and together they have a daughter. Grace will begin at the College on August 1, 2023.

Effective July 1, 2022, Dr. Stuart Blythe was appointed as the Associate Dean responsible for Faculty, and Dr. Danny Zacharias as Associate Dean responsible for Curriculum. Both continue to teach and research in their respective disciplines.

Dr. Stuart Blythe has recently published articles on rhetorical preaching including “Preaching as a Rhetorical Act: Practices and Possibilities with Reference to the Rev. Dr. John Gladstone (19212005)”, McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry. He also published “The Metaphors We Preach By: Preaching as Graffiti” in the Journal of European Baptist Studies

Dr. Danny Zacharias co-lectured with Dr. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe at The University of Iowa on the topic, “Reading the Bible on Turtle Island,” exploring the difference one’s Indigenous heritage and culture makes in interpreting Christian Scriptures.