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Richard J. Mouw, a noted seminary professor and theologian, he is currently President at Fuller Theological Seminary. He also holds the post of Professor of Christian Philosophy.
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Mouw was educated at Houghton College from which he received the B.A. degree. He then studied for the M.Div degree at Western Theological Seminary. He was awarded the M.A. from the University of Alberta, and his PhD. degree from the University of Chicago.
Mouw was Professor of Christian philosophy at Calvin College for seventeen years. He has also served as a visiting professor to the Free University of Amsterdam. He was appointed Professor of Christian Philosophy and Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1985. In 1993 he was elected president of Fuller Theological Seminary.
During the 1970s Mouw was noted as an innovative evangelical thinker and activist at Calvin College alongside of Stephen Monsma and Paul Henry. Mouw was identified by political scientist Robert Booth Fowler as being one of the important voices in what Fowler dubbed "reform-oriented evangelicals". For example Mouw was among several evangelicals 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". Mouw's concerns for social justice issues is reflected in his membership in various organizations such as the International Justice Mission, International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, and Christians for Biblical Equality.
He has written extensively on Christian social justice matters, as well as on philosophical topics. He has been a keen advocate of interpreting contemporary culture and suggesting fresh avenues for Christian engagement with culture. He has also urged evangelicals to have a deeper appreciation of their own heritage, particularly in their hymnology and fundamentalist values.
In 2000 he delivered the Stoeb Lectures in which he reanalysed the theological concept of common grace. This topic has had a history of debate within Protestant circles generally, and among Calvinist and Arminian theologians. Mouw's lectures generated a written response from the conservative Calvinist David Engelsma, and they have also held a public debate with each other over the subject.
Mouw has also been noted for his advocacy of a change of attitude and tactics among evangelicals when encountering devotees of new religious movements. This is reflected in the foreword he composed to the apologetics text The New Mormon Challenge where he applauded the authors for their efforts to respond to Mormons at a level of intellectual cogency, by using lofty standards of scholarship and maintaining ethical integrity in their unswerving commitment to orthodoxy. Similarly, he endorsed the literary debate between Craig Blomberg (evangelical New Testament scholar) and Stephen Robinson (a Mormon scholar) in the book How Wide the Divide? (InterVarsity Press, 1997). He has also endorsed the broader cross-cultural missions position presented by various American, Canadian and Australian evangelicals in the book Encountering New Religious Movements (Kregel 2004).
Mouw's stance on dialogue with scholars and leaders of the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) has generated some controversy among Christian apologists in the Christian countercult movement. In November 2004 he offered an apology to Mormons for the way in which many evangelicals have treated the Mormon faith in countercult books. He made this apology in introductory remarks at a speaking event where the Christian evangelist Ravi Zacharias was the featured speaker in Temple Square, Salt Lake City. He has also been the object of criticism from some countercult apologists for his back cover remarks on a book written by the Mormon scholar Robert Millet that was published by William B. Eerdmans.
This article is based on a verbatim copy of the whole or part, of a past version of the English-language Wikipedia article, Richard Mouw , and may be subject to the copyright restrictions of GFDL, section 2 (Verbatim copies), and section 4 (Modifications).
Two different reports from evangelical sources on the Zacharias-Mouw speeches with the Mormons can be compared at:
