If you were to open up the cabinet above my microwave in my childhood home, you’d find an old, stained and ripped piece of paper taped to the inside. At the top of the page are my parents’ phone numbers, both work and cell phone. Below them is a list of many more numbers. Near the top of the list are Brad Green’s work number and his cell number. My parents would tell us, “If there’s an emergency, call one of these numbers,” and gesture at the long list. I always knew who I would trust to pick up in a time of need. I considered Green and his family as basically my own — people I could call when I was scared or if something went wrong.
And it still holds true.
Now, as a college student, I know Green as a friend and as a professor, as do many other students. Green and his wife, Dianne, moved to Jackson in August of 1998 so he could be a professor at Union.
After 28 faithful years, Green announced his retirement this spring, making this his last semester at Union.
Green is a professor of theological studies in the School of Theology and Missions (STM). He has taught in the STM the entirety of his time at Union. Green’s job at Union looked similar to how it looks today, but the School of Theology and Missions has changed a bit.
“We’ve added majors, deleted majors … [But] our commitment to the scriptures has stayed the same … we’ve remained faithful, evangelical and Baptist,” said Green.
Teaching is not all that has taken up his time. In these years, he has published nine books, some of them focusing on Saint Augustine and some on broader theology and theological ideas.
“I’m happily a teacher and both a writer,” Green said. “I love the students; I love teaching. I also do love writing; I believe I’m called to write.”
It’s clear that Green is a passionate theologian based solely on his bookshelves overflowing with thick, old books. But more than that, he’s passionate about learning in general. His own learning, and others.
Green is a father to three adult children, and when they moved to Jackson, a new sentiment struck him.
“I developed the conviction that I wanted my children to have a Christ-centered education. I also wanted [them] to have an introduction to the great books and classical languages. I also developed a passion for seeing other children and students benefit from a classical Christian education,” Green said.
This passion led Green to be a co-founder of the Augustine School, a private school in Jackson. Augustine started with 13 students in 2001, when Green and the two other co-founders’ families began the pursuit. Now, Augustine is a thriving school with around 200 students enrolled from Pre-K through high school.
At the time, Green was still working at Union while also teaching certain classes to the few students Augustine had.
“I would go between Union and Augustine, trying to get the thing started,” Green said.
When I tried to ask him if it was hard, bouncing between the two, Green laughed, ever humble.
“It was a lot of work,” he said.
But it’s clear Augustine is everything Green had dreamed of accomplishing 25 years ago.
“Augustine School has really helped shape me in my own faith as a Christian as I look towards going to college,” said Isaac Brady, a current senior at Augustine School who has attended since he was in eighth grade. “The classical method of teaching really has helped shape me, even in just the way I think about things. It has really helped me take ownership of what I think instead of just being told what to think, which is really important in this day and age when people just blindly follow things they’ve been told.”
I also attended Augustine School for four years, and the time shaped me in ways I cannot even begin to summarize. I was exposed to books that I continue to return to, even in college. I remember discussions I had with my teachers when I was struggling to wrap my mind around theological ideas.
“At Augustine, you’re so blessed with such Christ-centered education that you don’t realize how much you wouldn’t get if you went somewhere else,” Brady said. “I have had discussions with others and realized that ideas that I would think are simple are actually quite complicated. But they have been taught to me so well in my classes that I assume everybody understands it.”
“I think the most rewarding [part of teaching] is seeing students develop,” Green said. “It’s fun to have a former student who’s now a friend or colleague or co-laborer … I look around at many churches here in Jackson, and they’re all my former students. It’s a blessing to see how you can have a part in shaping a community and seeing your graduates mature and grow and now they’re serving the Lord in the community you live in.”
Green lists off all the pastors in the area whom he taught when they were students, and I couldn’t even write them all down. Jackson has an abundance of amazing churches, and in almost each one, Green has had a direct, indirect or even unknown impact.
“Some students come in wide-eyed, and four years later, they are sharp, and they go on to achieve … I think of Eric Smith, a West Tennessee boy who is now writing books for this no-name publisher,” Green laughs. “Oxford University Press.”
Eric Smith is a pastor at Sharon Baptist Church in Savannah, Tennessee. Smith was one of Green’s theology students when he attended Union.
“Dr. Green was always so enthusiastic about theology … I was a Christian when I came to Union, but I had never had any kind of discipleship or teaching that led me to study doctrine and to really study the Bible,” Smith said. “Dr. Green led me by the hand in the wonderful world of knowing God better.”
Green guided Smith through his four years and even led Smith and his wife through pre-marital counseling and officiated Smith’s wedding.
Smith later read Green’s book, “The Gospel and the Mind,” released in 2010.
“When I read it, I realized how much of Green’s teaching had influenced me in ways I didn’t even think about anymore because it had become part [of my own] thinking,” Smith said. “It’s hard for me to think about a sermon in the last twenty years where I’m not talking about the cross in a way that’s influenced by Dr. Green.”
Now, as Green’s time at Union is coming to a close, so is his time in Jackson. He and his wife are moving to Louisville, Ky., for Green to serve as the professor of philosophy and Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He will leave behind the community he has shaped and the school that he poured so much of his heart and mind into.
He’s unsure of exactly what his leadership at Augustine will look like now that he is moving away, but with his hard work over the years, Augustine has a number of people who love the school and what it stands for.
“It’s bittersweet,” Green said. “If you have started something, you know how hard it is to pull away.”
While Green is retiring from Union, he isn’t done in the classroom yet.
“I am sad to leave Union,” Green said. “I am excited about continuing my ministry, but with PHD students who are also preparing for ministry and having the chance to influence the next generation of pastors in a different institutional setting.”
Kentucky is truly blessed to welcome Green. As he continues his ministry and his quest to glorify the Lord, I am confident that in just a few years, Louisville will experience the incredible benefits of having him among them, just as Jackson has.
