Dennis L. Okholm

Dennis L. Okholm is an American Protestant theologian who has taught at Wheaton College and at Azusa Pacific University, where he is professor of theology. Trained at Princeton Theological Seminary, his scholarly work centers on systematic and historical theology, monastic spirituality, and the interface between evangelical theology and contemporary religious pluralism. With Timothy R. Phillips he co-edited a series of widely used multi-view volumes for InterVarsity Press, including Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World (1995), which set John Hick's pluralism alongside inclusivist and exclusivist Christian responses, and The Nature of Confession: Evangelicals and Postliberals in Conversation (1996). These volumes made Okholm a recognizable figure in late-1990s debates over the theology of religions, where evangelicals confronted Hickian pluralism and the postliberalism of George Lindbeck. Okholm's own constructive work has since shifted toward Benedictine spirituality and the integration of psychology with the Christian tradition of the deadly sins, as in Monk Habits for Everyday People (2007) and Dangerous Passions, Deadly Sins (2014). Within debates over religious pluralism he occupies a broadly inclusivist-leaning evangelical position, sympathetic to the uniqueness of Christ while engaging seriously with non-Christian traditions. His role as editor rather than polemicist has made his volumes standard classroom texts, though critics note that the multi-view format can flatten substantive disagreements into stylized exchanges.