George Hancock-Stefan

Thornley B. Wood Professor of Church History and Missions

McInnis 249

Dr. George Hancock-Stefan is passionate about teaching and preaching nationally and internationally. In addition to teaching at Palmer Theological Seminary, he has taught Church History, Baptist Polity, and Missions at Wheaton, Princeton Seminary, New Brunswick Seminary, and New York Divinity School. George has been pastoring Central Baptist Church in Atlantic Highlands since 1990 and currently serves as the President of the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey’s Executive Council.

George also travels frequently to Romania and Serbia, where he has taught at The Universities of Bucharest and Beograd. He recently raised funds to build a church in his hometown of Grebenat and his doctoral dissertation, The Impact of the Reformation on the Romanian People from 1517-1645, was translated into Romanian and is frequently used as a seminary textbook there.

In the 1970s, George was the Executive Director of the Romanian Missionary Society in Wheaton, IL. Since then, he has served as a board member and recently wrote a history of the organization for their 50th anniversary. The relationship between Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy is of special interest to him, since those beliefs are so prevalent in Eastern Europe. He contributed to Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism (Zondervan), which was translated into Romanian and Serbian. At the Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative in 2018, Three Views was presented as an exemplary book discussing the relationship between Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism.

George is married to Ginny, who is the music director at their church. He is the father of four daughters and Buni (grandfather) to three grandchildren.

Education

Ph.D., Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL, 1997 - Historical Theology

Th.M., Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, 1982 - New Testament

M.Div., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, S. Hamilton, MA, 1977 - Parish Ministry

B.A., Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, 1973 - American History and Bible

Classes Taught

Enduring Models of Renewal Leadership (DMin)

Christian World Mission

Church Renewal and Evangelism

Church in Mission through History

Baptist History and Polity

Christus Victor

St. Augustine and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Theology and Missions of Eastern Orthodoxy

Twentieth Century Evangelicalism

Theology of the Reformation

Introduction to the New Testament (undergraduate)

Research Interests

Patristics, Reformation, Baptists, Church Renewal, Missions

Professional Associations and Services

Member of Evangelical Theological Society

Baptist World Alliance History and Heritage

Publications

“The Gospel and the City: Four Baptist Churches in Twentieth Century New York City” in Baptists and Culture, which will be published by Baylor Press in 2021

“The Hurried Theological Concept Transfer: The Incarnation of Jesus and the Incarnation of the Church” in Baptists and Revivals, published by Mercer University Press 2018

In American Baptist Quarterly: “George Younger: Tireless Civil Rights Leader of the ABCNJ” (2018), “The Relationship Between Baptist Polity and Civic Law” (2017), “60 Years of Baptist Pneumatology Publications—A Historical Review” (2012)

Entries about Confessions, Creeds, Jonathan Goble, George H Hough, Eugene William Lyman, Charles Clayton Morrison, John Nott, Clarence Augustus Walworth, and Romanian Baptist Churches in America for Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States (George Thomas Kurian and Mark A. Lampert, editors, Roman and Littlefield Publishers, 2016)

In Baptist History and Heritage: “The Impact of the Sons and Daughters of Slaves from the South on the Romanian Churches during the Communist Era” (2013)