Largest Evangelical Archaeology Program Finds New Home in Nashville

Southwestern’s former president Paige Patterson connected outgoing professors to Lipscomb University.

After they were dismissed from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTWS) within a few minutes of each other in March, Steve Ortiz and Tom Davis put their heads together to pray and figure out what they were going to do.

Ortiz and Davis were both seasoned directors of archaeological projects in Israel and across the Middle East. While at SWBTS, the third-largest seminary in the United States, they saw the Tandy Institute for Archaeology contribute to the school’s growth and vision. The institute had about two dozen MA and PhD students, making it the largest archeological program at an evangelical school.

The two professors expected cutbacks in 2020 because of COVID-19 and ongoing financial challenges facing higher education. But they had no idea their jobs were on the line.

It didn’t seem right to them. As Ortiz and Davis reviewed their accomplishments of the preceding decade, they came up with a growing list of accomplishments. They’d done an amazing amount of research since Ortiz started as director.

“We saw how God had been growing the Tandy and providing us projects that were already funded and just needed our staff members and our students,” Ortiz told Christianity Today. “So we said, ‘Let's see if somebody will hire both of us.’”

One of the first people they called was former SWBTS president Paige Patterson, who had been a strong Tandy supporter. Patterson suggested they talk with Mark Lanier, a Houston attorney and the founder of the Lanier Theological Library.

Lanier was in touch almost immediately and said he would like to see them hired at his alma mater, Lipscomb University, a 129-year old, Churches of Christ-affiliated school in Nashville. Ortiz and Davis ...