Dr. Scott Swain, currently associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, has been approved and appointed the academic dean starting June 1, 2012, while continuing to teach

This decision will allow Dr. Mark Futato, a beloved Old Testament and Hebrew professor who has served as academic dean for seven years, to return to teaching more classes.

“I am so grateful for the steady leadership that Mark Futato has given to our faculty over the past eight years,” said RTSO President Don Sweeting. “Mark is highly esteemed by all, and students are clamoring to have him back in the classroom full-time.”

Sweeting added, “But we are thrilled to have Dr. Scott Swain as our new academic dean. He brings the perspective of a younger scholar to our faculty. God is using him greatly in his writings. He has a vision for the theological influence of RTS. And it is all backed by a deep love for Christ, his church, the Scriptures, and for reformed theology.”

“RTS Orlando struck gold when we found Dr. Swain,” said Futato. “Scott makes a wonderful contribution to RTS, the church, and the academy through his teaching and writing. His colleagues and students alike appreciate who he is as well as what he does. We look forward to what God will do for us and for others through Scott’s leadership as academic dean.”

In 2006, Swain joined the faculty of RTS in Orlando. Prior to that, he taught theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill., and served on the faculty of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

His publications to date have focused primarily upon two areas, the doctrine of the Trinity and the theological interpretation of the Bible. His most recent book is Trinity, Revelation, and Reading: A Theological Introduction to the Bible and its Interpretation (T & T Clark, 2011). Swain is in the process of completing God According to the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology for the Strategic Initiatives in Evangelical Theology series, published by IVP Academic. With Michael Allen, he serves as general editor of T & T Clark’s International Theological Commentary.

A native Floridian, Swain earned a B.A. from the University of North Florida, an M.Div. and Th.M. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He serves as an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and is a regular teacher in the Institute for Biblical Studies (for Cru staff). He and his wife, Leigh, have four children: Caroline, Sophia, Josiah and Micah.

“Dr. Scott Swain is a treasure to RTS; and to the church,” said Dr. Michael Milton, chancellor-elect of RTS. “Through his pastoral warmth, academic precision, love of the Lord, the Church, and the Bible, as well an increasing world-wide network of readers who have come to trust Scott’s strong but winsome confessional writings, he demonstrates the model of a ‘pastor-scholar’ that we desire for our faculty. As we rejoice to see Dr. Mark Futato return to teaching more classes, where his gifts are so clearly used and appreciated, and express our deep gratitude for his sterling work as our dean, we now rejoice with the RTS Orlando community and the broader RTS community in welcoming my friend, Dr. Swain, as the new academic dean of the Orlando campus of RTS.”

The RTS Orlando campus, a graduate theological school which has conferred 1454 degrees, was established in 1989 in Maitland and moved to its permanent location on 65 acres on Long Lake in Oviedo, Fla., in 1999. It is one of several campuses in the RTS system, which was founded in 1966. RTS is one of the largest seminaries in the country with campuses in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Jackson, Memphis, Orlando and Washington D.C., in addition to a virtual campus offering online classes.