While he grew up in a religious home, Jeff Mooney was an atheist by the time he got to college.
Done with Southern church culture, he surrounded himself in a “fundamentally-atheist” environment while studying at Auburn University.
“My world was going along fine until (my friend) Matt became a Christian,” Mooney said.
Matt’s conversion was “unnerving,” he said. Mooney wasn’t able to chalk it up to cultural pressure or turning over a new leaf. He knew something had happened to his friend that changed him, and it scared Mooney.
Later, while in New York, Mooney picked up a Bible and began to read. The Lord used His Word to bring Mooney to saving faith in Christ.
“My context of theological education was very low,” Mooney said.
Mooney ended up working at the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention for a while, and at a conference, met Wallace Williams, a former associate dean of community life at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School.
Mooney found his way to Beeson in 1993, just five years after it opened its doors for the first time.
“It was the best place to be,” Mooney said. “It’s where the top evangelicals were.”
Mooney sat under faculty members like founding dean Timothy George, Gerald Bray, Ken Mathews and Frank Thielman, among others, and heard from renowned theologians such as D.A. Carson, John Stott, J.I. Packer and Alister McGrath.
“Every week, we were bringing in those groups of people that were really influential, and it was a very exciting time to be there,” Mooney said. “You felt like you were at the epicenter of something. The teaching itself was formative.”
After graduating in 1996, Mooney earned a PhD in Old Testament Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and pastored Redeemer Baptist Church in California. In his time as pastor, the church grew from 15-20 people attending to 450-500 when he resigned in 2022.
Mooney joined the faculty of California Baptist University in 2004 and was bivocational until resigning the pastorate in 2022.
“I don’t know that I’ll do anything that important the rest of my life,” Mooney said of pastoring. “I got that by being at Beeson.”
For his service to the Lord’s church and to Christian higher education, Mooney was named Beeson’s Alumnus of the Year for 2025.
“Jeff Mooney is an ideal ambassador for Beeson,” Dean Douglas Sweeney said. “He’s a pastor and a professor, a people person and a scholar who has dedicated himself to Gospel ministry and serious Bible teaching for decades. He’s a fascinating person with a wide range of interests: jazz music, disability ministry, theology and more. It’s a joy and an honor to announce that he is this year’s alumnus of the year.”
Mooney said the award is gratifying and hopes the award shows the professors and others who invested in him that their investment paid off.