Richard Mouw is currently [2007] president of the 4100 student Fuller Theological Seminary headquartered in Pasadena, California, with extension campuses in several locations in the United States. Mouw also holds the post of Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller.
In his younger years, in the 1970’s, Mouw was known as an innovative evangelical thinker and activist. He was involved in the 1973 Conference of Evangelicals for Social Concern, and was a signatory to that Conference’s declaratory statement, “An Historic Moment for Biblical Social Concern”. Since then he has been a member of various organizations such as the International Justice Mission, International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, and Christians for Biblical Equality. As a result of his interest in social issues he has written extensively on the subject.
More recently, Mouw has become an advocate of interpreting contemporary culture and he has suggested fresh avenues for Christian engagement with contemporary culture. In line with the above, he has also advocated a change of attitude and tactics among evangelicals when encountering devotees of other religious movements. Specifically he has been instrumental in opening a dialog between evangelicals and members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. He also co-chairs, representing the Presbyterian Church (USA), the official five-denomination Reformed-Roman Catholic Dialogue, and he is a panelist for the Newsweek-Washington online panel, “On Faith”.
Mouw received his undergraduate education at Houghton College in Western New York, graduating in 1962. After studying for two years at Western Theological Seminary, he earned an M.A. degree in Philosophy at the University of Alberta. In 1971, he received the Ph.D. degree in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. He has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees by Northwestern College in Iowa, Houghton College, and Pepperdine University.
Professor Mouw began teaching Christian Philosophy at Calvin College in 1968. He would stay there for 17 years. During that time he also served, for a term, as a visiting professor at the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 1985, he was offered a position as Professor of Christian Philosophy and Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. In 1989, he was also appointed to Provost and Senior Vice President at Fuller. He remained in these administrative positions until 1993, when he was appointed to the presidency of Fuller Theological Seminary. At the time this biographical profile was prepared [2007], he was still in that position.
Professor Mouw has been a prolific author during his entire academic career. His publications include: “Political Evangelism”, published in 1974, “Politics and the Political Drama”, published in 1976, “Called to Holy Worldliness”, published in 1980, “Objections to Christianity”, published in 1981, “When the Kings Come Marching In”, published in 1983, “Distorted Truth”, published in 1989, “The God Who Commands”, published in 1990, “Uncommon Decency”, published in 1992, “Pluralisms and Horizons”, [with Sander Griffioen], published in 1993, “Consulting the Faithful”, published in 1994, “The Smell of Sawdust: What Evangelicals Can Learn from their Fundamentalist Heritage”, published in 2000, “He Shines on All that’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace”, published in 2001, “Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today’s World”, published in 2004, and “Wonderful Worlds of Life”, published in 2004. Most, but not all of the above books, have been published by Eerdman’s Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Mouw and his wife, Phyllis, have one son, Dirk, presently completing a doctoral dissertation on Dutch colonial history at the University of Iowa. Their daughter-in-law, Christine Mouw, is Curator at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. The younger Mouws have two sons, Willem and Peter.
REFERENCES
Richard Mouw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mouw
Richard J. Mouw, http://www.marshillaudio.org/resources/guest_detail.asp?ID=319
Theologian aims to clarify a loaded word’s meaning,http://www.fuller.edu/news/html/mouw_latimes1206.asp
Richard Mouw challenges evangelical Presbyterians,http://www.pcusa.org/ga217/newsandphotos/ga06084.htm
E-BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON; GOOGLE: Kindle Store Pegels
PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICANS, CURRENT AND HISTORIC
EIGHT PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICAN FAMILIES: THE ROOSEVELTS, VANDERBILTS AND OTHERS, 2015
FIFTEEN PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICAN FAMILIES: THE VAN BURENS, KOCH BROTHERS, VOORHEES AND OTHERS, 2015
PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICANS IN U.S. GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP POSITIONS, 2015
DUTCH PEGELS INVOLVED IN WARS
ALLIED EUROPE CAMPAIGN—1944/1945: TACTICAL MISTAKES, 2017
THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE NETHERLANDS: MEMOIRS, 2017
FRENCH REVOLUTION, NAPOLEON AND RUSSIAN WAR OF 1812, 2015