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Executive Director, Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement

Charleston Southern University

Position Summary

Charleston Southern University seeks a founding executive director for a permanent university-based Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement. The executive director will be a Baptist scholar and public intellectual who can build a high-impact, academically serious, student-forming, faculty-engaging, and publicly visible apologetics center. 

The center will utilize traditional Christian apologetics while also promoting civic discourse and constructive engagement with the major academic fields of the university. Rather than functioning only as a lecture series or public platform, the center will also help faculty and students develop and deploy apologetic arguments for Christianity from the intellectual, moral, cultural, and social goods that emerge when Christians bring the faith to bear faithfully within their disciplines.

The executive director’s primary responsibility will be catalytic academic and institutional leadership.   The executive director’s work will focus on building programs, producing durable intellectual resources, mentoring students, engaging faculty, and establishing a visible evangelical apologetics presence that advances the mission of the university.

Who is Charleston Southern University?

Our Mission: Promoting Academic Excellence in a Christian Environment

Our Vision: To be a Christian university nationally recognized for integrating faith in learning, leading, and serving.

Our Work: We deliver distinctly Christian, academically excellent liberal arts, professional, and graduate education by integrating faith in student learning, leadership development, and service opportunities. Our educational commitments include high-engagement learning, holistic student formation, pathway success, and professional readiness.

Primary Responsibilities

• Provide strategic, academic, and public leadership for the Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement.
• Develop and implement the center’s mission, programs, annual priorities, and long-term strategy.
• Build student-facing programs that form students in Christian apologetics, civic discourse, intellectual confidence, and faithful public witness.
• Engage faculty across the university in developing apologetic arguments and resources related to their academic disciplines.
• Create and oversee public programming, including lectures, forums, workshops, visiting scholar events, and church-facing apologetics events.
• Produce or coordinate durable intellectual resources, including essays, lectures, videos, podcasts, curriculum materials, white papers, edited volumes, and other apologetics resources.
• Represent the university publicly through speaking, writing, media engagement, conference participation, and relationships with churches, pastors, denominational leaders, and apologetics organizations.
• Support university advancement efforts related to the center by communicating the center’s vision, impact, and strategic importance to donors and external partners.
• The executive director will hold a faculty appointment in the College of Christian Studies at an appropriate rank based on academic qualifications and experience and will teach one course per major semester in an area related to apologetics, theology, philosophy, public theology, faith and culture, or another field connected to the center’s mission.
• Work warmly and constructively with evangelicals of multiple denominational traditions in a confessional Baptist university context, support the mission of the institution, and engage students, faculty, churches, pastors, donors, and the broader public with theological clarity and Christian charity.
• Perform other duties as required. 

Required Qualifications

• A strong commitment to Christian Higher Education and Charleston Southern University’s mission
• PhD in a field directly related to the work of the center, such as Christian apologetics, ethics, historical theology, New Testament or early Christianity, philosophy, philosophy of religion, public theology, theology, or a closely related field
• A successful candidate will be able to affirm the university doctrinal statement as well as the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, and the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. 
• A publication record demonstrating influence in areas such as apologetics, public theology, and civic engagement 
• The candidate should possess a record of scholarly credibility, public communication, and evangelical leadership. Because the center is intended to carry institutional visibility, the director should have recognizable standing beyond the local university context, whether through publications, speaking, podcasting, video content, denominational leadership, academic networks, or apologetics ministry.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated success in strategic planning and program development
• Record of successful external engagement and partnership development
• Five or more years serving in a Christian higher education setting

Desired Attributes

• A servant leadership philosophy marked by genuine Christlikeness
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to build trust across stakeholders
• A collaborative mindset that values interdisciplinary engagement
• Strategic thinking balanced with operational effectiveness
• Commitment to advancing the mission and growth of the Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement