On behalf of the Wycliffe College Board of Trustees, Principal Stephen Andrews is pleased to announce the appointment of Victor I. Ezigbo as the College’s first Professor of Global Christianity and Intercultural Ministry, a post he will take up on January 1, 2025.
Dr. Ezigbo comes to Wycliffe from Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, where he has been Professor of Theology since 2008. After receiving his BA from ECWA Theological Seminary in Igbaja, Nigeria, he studied at Wheaton College and received his MA in 2002. In 2005, he obtained an MTh at the University of Edinburgh, and was awarded a PhD from there in 2008. In 2014, he was Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, and in 2022, he was Visiting Research Fellow at Yale Divinity School.
He is the author of Re-imagining African Christologies: Conversing with the Interpretations and Appropriations of Jesus Christ in Contemporary African Christianity (2010); Introducing Christian Theologies: Voices from Global Christian Communities (two volumes, 2013 and 2015); and The Art of Contextual Theology: Doing Theology in the Era of World Christianity (2021). His book, Christology and the Enactment of Jesus Christ’s Presence, is expected to be published next year by Cambridge University Press.
Professor Ezigbo’s appointment concludes an international search and received a unanimous endorsement from the search committee, which included people from the Toronto School of Theology and the University of Toronto. Referees described him as ‘a creative and exciting scholar’, and ‘a Nigerian scholar who capably represents the global South while also engaging a range of “Western” academic figures and questions’.
"It’s rare to encounter a Christian theologian and minister who is conversant across multiple forms of world Christianity, from Latin American, Indian, and East Asian, to West African, but God has provided Wycliffe with just such an individual," said Academic Dean, Justin Stratis, who chaired the search committee. "I’m so excited for our students to have their perspectives enlarged and their confidence in the power of the gospel deepened as they learn from and spend time with Prof. Ezigbo."
Principal Andrews added, "This position was established to equip future congregational leaders to serve in multicultural contexts and to offer doctoral supervision in the areas of missiology, intercultural studies and diaspora studies. Professor Ezigbo’s teaching will also augment Wycliffe’s pastoral preparation in the areas of evangelism and Church planting."
Dr. Ezigbo writes, "I am excited about contributing to the mission of Wycliffe College. I believe we can do remarkable things together for the glory of the Triune God."
Dr. Ezigbo is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Church of West Africa and is the founder and president of the Centre for Research in Global Christianity. His wife is a nurse and they have two children.
