Dr. Cecil M. Robeck Receives Inaugural AG Lifetime Scholar Award
Fuller Seminary proudly extends warmest congratulations to Dr. Cecil (Mel) Robeck Jr., a Fuller alum and senior professor of church history and ecumenics, who recently received the inaugural Assemblies of God Lifetime Scholar Award. In June, the Assemblies of God held its inaugural AG Scholars Forum at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California, in order to encourage the scholars in their important work which contributes not only to the academy but also to the church.
The two-day gathering of general sessions, breakout discussions, and fellowship also included the presentation of the first AG Lifetime Scholar Award to Dr. Robeck, who has been an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God for over fifty years and who has been a mentor to many scholars in the AG community during that time.
Dr. Allen Tennison, theological counsel to the General Council of the Assemblies of God, said, “As both a scholar and ecumenical pioneer, Dr. Robeck sets an incredibly high standard for Pentecostals at work in the academy and the church. He has also paved the way for Pentecostals to better understand themselves and the greater church world to which they belong. When our committee considered who should receive the very first Assemblies of God Lifetime Scholar Award, Dr. Robeck was the unanimous choice.”
Robeck, who received his MDiv and PhD at Fuller, first began working at the seminary in 1974. He became assistant professor of church history in 1985 and was professor of church history and ecumenics from 1997 to 2016. He also served in several administrative positions across the seminary, and he has been special assistant to the president for ecumenical relations.
Robeck has worked on ecumenical issues for nearly 40 years with the World Council of Churches, the Vatican, the World Alliance (now Communion) of Reformed Churches, and other groups. He served as a consultant to the chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization for long-term relations with the Vatican and on its initiative with the Orthodox churches. For over two decades, Robeck has served on the steering committee of the Global Christian Forum. For 18 years, he has met annually with the Secretaries of Christian World Communions and he appears regularly as a panelist on broadcasts of the American Religious Town Hall.
His long-term historical research has centered on the Azusa Street Mission and Revival and its pastor William Seymour. In 1999, he received a grant from the John Randolf Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to explore this topic and its impact on Los Angeles. His recent publications in the field of ecumenics have focused on the Holy Spirit, the church, unity in the Pentecostal perspective, and potential contributions the Pentecostal Movement can make to the world Christian Movement.
An author of over 300 articles, Robeck is the author of The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement (2006, Recipient of the Pneuma Award, and nominated for the Grawmeyer Award) and Prophecy at Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian (1992). He is the editor of Witness to Pentecost: The Life of Frank Bartleman (1985) and Charismatic Experiences in History (1985), and coeditor of The Azusa Street Revival and Its Legacy (2006), The Suffering Body: Responding to the Persecution of Christians (2006), and The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism (2014). For nine years, he was editor of Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies.
Fuller President David Emmanuel Goatley said, “Professor Robeck is an exemplar of a scholar, professor, and administrator. His work enriches the church, in its broadest sense, and the academy. Dr. Robeck is a celebrated Fuller alumnus who has contributed immensely to equipping leaders for the church, the academy, and the world. He is worthy of this honor, and we rejoice.”