J. Mark Lawson, Ph.D.

J. Mark Lawson is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He is also a biblical scholar with particular interest in the New Testament and how it reflects the theological and social development of early Christian communities. At Le Moyne, he has taught Christian Beginnings, Theology and Suffering, Religious Perspectives on the Human Situation, Introduction to the New Testament, Letters of Paul, American Religion, and The Theological Venture. In 2008, he was honored as Le Moyne’s Outstanding Part-time Faculty Member of the Year. In 2018, he received the college’s Bene Merenti award. Lawson designed, instituted, and continues to teach in the New York School of Ministry (NYSOM), a theological training program for laypeople seeking to practice licensed ministry in the local church. NYSOM also includes an alternative track to ordination for second-career ministers in the United Church of Christ. He is the author of Fully Free: Rejecting Racism, Renouncing Christian Nationalism, and Renewing American Christianity (Smyth & Helwys, 2024) and Cracking the Book: How to Start Reading the Bible (WinePress, 2011).