Dr. Mashburn is a native of Bay Minette, Alabama.  After graduating from Baldwin County High School, he attended Livingston University on a four-year athletic scholarship and graduated with a B.A. degree in Social Science.  As a college student, he was an active member of the Baptist Student Union and was selected by the Alabama Foreign Mission Board after his junior year to serve as a summer missionary in Liberia, West Africa.  Following graduation, he again served the Foreign Mission Board as a Journeymen Missionary for two years in Nazareth, Israel, where he taught English and coordinated the athletic program at Nazareth Baptist School. 

After his tenure in Israel, Mashburn attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, where he completed a Master of Divinity degree.  From there he went to Edinburgh University in Edinburgh, Scotland and obtained a Master of Theology degree and then to Oxford University in England where he received his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil).

Mashburn has been a Professor at the University of Mobile for the past 40 years.  He serves as Professor of Humanities and is Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  He is also an ordained Southern Baptist minister, actively involved in pastoral service. He has been pastor of Josephine Baptist Church for the past 25 years.   

He has contributed articles and presented papers on such topics as fundamentalism, spirituality, Descartes, Greek poets, Socratic thinking, Homer in the Workplace, early and Medieval Christian writers, and the nature of theology.  Currently, he is working on a collection of essays on the theme of spiritual maturity.

He and his wife Rene’ reside in Fairhope, Alabama, where Rene owns and operates a home furnishing store (Green Gates Market). They have two daughters and six grandchildren.