Mickey L. Mattox
- Delp 325
- [email protected]
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Faculty Information
Additional Faculty Information for Mickey L. Mattox
Education
Ph.D., Duke University, 1997
M.A., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1994
M.A., Simon Greenleaf School of Law, 1987
B.S., University of California at Davis, 1981
Biography
I am a Catholic scholar of Martin Luther with interests in the history of biblical interpretation and ecumenical theology. I also have a passion for introducing students to the discipline of Christian theology. How did I get here? As an undergraduate at the University of California-Davis I chose to major in agricultural business because, well, I liked it, and I was pretty sure I would be able to get a job. It worked. Upon graduation I was hired by the Federal Land Bank. For the next few years, I worked with farmers and ranchers of all kinds and felt proud to help them succeed.
But. In college, I had been involved in an evangelical Christian group (now Cru). To fulfill a “breadth requirement,” and to try to answer some nagging doubts I had about my own faith, I enrolled in a course in early church history. The teacher was Dr. Manfred P. Fleischer, a classically trained German intellectual who had immigrated to the States to become of one of UC Davis’s best. A new world opened up. Three more courses with Fleischer left me feeling deeply enriched. And wanting to know more.
A few years into my banking career, my wife Pam and I decided it was time to go for the more. Opportunities took us first to Chicago for an MA, then to North Carolina for the PhD, then back to Chicago as a junior professor, then to France to work in a research institute, and then to Marquette University in Milwaukee, where I worked for almost two decades. Clearly, the academic life can be an itinerant experience.
In 2022 I accepted a position at Hillsdale because I want others to benefit from the kind of liberal arts education that enriched my life and then, unexpectedly, helped me find my way into a profession that is much more than a job. It’s a vocation, a calling, even a ministry. The Apostle Paul sometimes writes of pouring his life out like a drink offering in service to those he loves. I don’t want to compare my life to his, but each of us is meant in some way to be a drink offering for others. Hillsdale College is a special place where people like me can still offer who they are and what they know in the classroom without fear of reproach. I am grateful and delighted to be here!