Dr. Gary Selby

Gary S. Selby is Professor of Ministerial Formation at Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan, where he teaches courses in spiritual formation, preaching, leadership, and ministry. Before coming to Emmanuel in 2017, he was the Carl P. Miller Chair of Communication at Pepperdine University and Director of Pepperdine’s Center for Faith and Learning.

Gary holds a PhD in Public Communication from the University of Maryland and a Master of Theology from Harding University Graduate School of Religion. His research centers in early Christian rhetoric, the rhetoric of the civil rights movement, and Christian spirituality. In addition to numerous essays and book chapters, he is the author of three books, Martin Luther King and the Rhetoric of Freedom: The Exodus in America’s Struggle for Civil Rights (Baylor University Press, 2008), Not With Wisdom of Words: Nonrational Persuasion in the New Testament (Eerdmans Press, 2016), and Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality: C. S. Lewis and Incarnational Faith (InterVarsity Academic Press, 2019).

He also spent 22 years in local pastoral ministry, first with the Silver Spring, Maryland Church of Christ, and then, beginning in 1985, for 19 years with the Church of Christ in Columbia, Maryland. For the last nine of those years, he was also on the faculty of George Washington University, teaching in their communication program.

Gary has been married for 42 years to his wife, Tammy Rogers Selby, and is the proud father of two married sons and five grandchildren. He loves music, hiking, traveling, and reading good novels. For all the different things he gotten to do, his heart is in local ministry and his passion is for preparing women and men to change the world by serving the local church.