Dr. Steve Blakemore
sblakemore@wbs.edu
601-366-8880 ext. 107
 Steve
Blakemore is simultaneously a philosopher and an evangelist. For him,
philosophy is a passionate search for truth that, followed to its
conclusion, must bring us to God by grace. Evangelism is proclamation of
the One who is the Truth that graciously “wins” other people to faith in
God through Christ. He finds that these twin vocations are mutually
enriching.
More importantly, he is the grateful and happy husband of Carolyn
Berg-Blakemore and father of four sons: Isaac, Jonathan, Jesse, and Ian.
A native of southwestern Virginia, he was reared in the small mountain
coal-mining town named Appalachia. There he learned life’s most
important truths from godly Methodist parents.
Steve’s educational background is rich and varied: Asbury College (A.B.,
Religious Studies); Asbury Theological Seminary (M.Div.); Wake Forest
University (M.A., Theology and Ethics); and The University of Tennessee
(Ph.D. Candidate, Philosophy). His area of specialization is Medieval
and Early Modern Philosophy, especially regarding the metaphysics of
“personhood”. Professionally, he has extensive experience as a United
Methodist Church pastor, serving churches in Tennessee and Virginia. He
also served for several years as Chaplain at a United Methodist college.
Over the past eighteen years, he has preached to and taught a variety of
audiences in Camp Meetings, Revivals, Pastors’ Schools, College Courses,
Seminary Lectures, Youth Conferences and Camps, and College Conventions.
Also, he has enjoyed a ministry of music across the years in many of
these same settings.
In addition to this professional experience, Steve has committed a large
amount of his creative energy to beginning and developing ministries
that are focused on reaching young people and serving the economically
disadvantaged. These endeavors reveal two of the great passions of his
life: bringing youth and young adults to life-changing faith in Christ;
and serving the poor in the name of Christ. He is co-founder of
“Resurrection”, an annual winter youth convention held in Gatlinburg,
Tennessee. Each year over 10,000 young people and their counselors from
the southeastern United States attend this convention, which is focused
on evangelism and the call to radical discipleship. Also, he is the
founder of “W.O.W. Week” a ministry of Worship, Outreach, and Witness
with youth from the Eastern United States to the poor of Monroe County,
Tennessee.
As the author of several published articles and scholarly papers, he has
written both for the Church and its laity and pastoral leadership, as
well as the Academy and its professors. Since 1994, Steve has been very
interested in Islamic-Christian dialogue and the challenges of reaching
Muslims with the Good News of Jesus Christ. In the past he led a group
of Christian college professors and students on a “good-will” trip to
Yasawi University in Turkistan, Kazakstan, at the invitation of that
university’s president. There he delivered a series of lectures to the
Oriental Studies faculty and graduate students. The lectures were: “The
Loss of Shame: Individualism and the Decline of Morality in the West,
“The Christian Understanding of Sin and Forgiveness,” “Speaking
Different Languages,” and “The Challenge of Christian-Muslim Dialogue.”
Steve is deeply interested in “ideas,” because he knows that “ideas have
consequences.” Therefore, he feels that his calling as a Christian
philosopher is to think long and deeply about both the “Faith delivered
once to all the saints” and the ideologies that shape contemporary
culture, so that, as a Christian evangelist, he might effectively
proclaim the Gospel of our Lord.
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