Settling In: Faculty Spotlight on Dr. Kelsey Spinnato

If you take Dr. Kelsey Spinnato's Intro to Theology class, you'll come away with a lot more than a broader understanding of the Christian faith and its origins. By semester's end, you'll have explored your own beliefs and developed your own personal creed.

"That's a cool class because everyone has to take it, so there's variety in the ways students approach the material," says Spinnato, who began teaching at TLU in the fall of 2024. "There's no one perspective that dominates."

Spinnato organizes the class around the Apostles' Creed. "Through that framework we look at the biblical bases of major Christian doctrines and what most Christians agree upon, while also looking at the rich diversity within Christianity, both historically and today." But Spinnato challenges her students to examine their own faith in the process. "I ask them to think about who they are, what they believe, what they value, and how they live into and out of those things."

Spinnato's course load spans most of TLU's offerings in biblical studies. Over the next year, she'll be developing classes such as Women in the Bible and The Bible in America. "I'm looking forward to developing those, especially Women in the Bible, since my dissertation was on Rebekah, one of the main characters in the book of Genesis." Spinnato also teaches Judaism, which is being offered this semester. "I really like teaching that class, which tries to give a high-level overview of Jewish history, texts, and culture while diving deep into a few specific areas."

A love for delving into ancient texts comes naturally to Spinnato, who has always loved reading and writing-so much so, in fact, that she decided to major in English in college. "I wanted to work in publishing," she says. But in eighth grade, she learned about how the process of translating the Bible works-and what can be lost in translation. "I knew I wanted to work with biblical languages and somehow combine that with publishing. This meant either working in a Christian publishing house or on teams translating the Bible into new languages."

So, Spinnato tacked a Biblical Languages major onto her English major (with an emphasis on writing) at Belmont University in Nashville. She landed an internship and then a job in Christian publishing, faithfully following the path she'd charted for herself.

That was when she heard the call of the classroom-realizing she was longing for the opportunity to foster conversations with students about biblical texts rather than just editing them for clarity. "My research interests lie especially in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), the Hebrew language, and the culture of the ancient Near East, so that's where I focused my work during my MTS at Emory University and my PhD at Southern Methodist University. I love teaching the Hebrew Bible to undergraduates because so many students are unfamiliar with it or perhaps even afraid of it. I want to dispel those concerns!"

Once she'd earned her PhD from SMU, Spinnato moved to North Carolina to teach at High Point University. But she's originally from the Houston area, and when the opportunity to teach at TLU arose, she jumped at the chance to be near her family again. "My parents now live in New Braunfels, and it's a real joy to be able to live near them again and see them on a regular basis. I'm also able to see my siblings and nieces and nephews more often, which makes me happy."

Still, it takes time to settle in, and Spinnato is in the process of fully transitioning into her new position at TLU. "As the freshmen know, it's a lot of mental work to transition to a new place," she says. "Once you start to understand the way things operate and who everyone is, you're freed up from that particular part of the mental load." So with her first semester under her belt, she anticipates "having more bandwidth to be a better teacher" this spring, she says. "I'm especially looking forward to tweaking Introduction to Theology to better suit TLU students so that we all get more out of it." She'll also be connecting with her love of writing, as she begins work on a project with a former colleague who is also one of her best friends. "So that'll be something new that's difficult but made easier in partnership."

In her downtime, the self-described homebody enjoys snuggling up on the couch with her dog, reading, and watching tv with husband Larry Gipson, a local pastor. "I also run outside when the weather is nice, and when I have the time, I like baking and making ice cream."

Her first semester at TLU was highlighted by fruitful discussions and enthusiastic students in her Old Testament Studies class. "There's a lot that's hard about studying the Old Testament-it's old, it spans hundreds of years, and sometimes it's ethically difficult and just generally hard to understand-but the students persevered," she says. "They even learned a little bit of the Hebrew language, which is no small feat!" And that experience was just what Spinnato had been looking for when she traded the publishing industry for the classroom. "I'm extraordinarily proud of them. It was a great reminder about why I do what I do."