Patrick Oden
Affiliate Associate Professor of Theology and Church History and Research Associate Professor of Theology
BA, Wheaton College
MDiv, Fuller Theological Seminary
PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary
Bio
Patrick Oden is married to Amy Oden and has two kids, Vianne and Oliver. Vianne was born very, very early on Easter morning, 2012 (sharing a birthday with Jürgen Moltmann). Oliver was born on July 31, 2014 (sharing a birthday with Harry Potter).
After finishing his MDiv at Fuller in 2002 and working for a time as a pastor, Dr. Oden stepped away from ministry and moved to the mountains. What followed was an extended season inspired by early Christian monastics. He did a lot of reading and praying and writing, helping those in need around him, staring at trees, watching ravens, and running after coyotes through the forest.
During this time, he wrote two books (It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit and How Long? The Trek through the Wilderness, both published by Barclay Press) and participated in many forms of nontraditional Christian community life before Fuller beckoned him back to continue his studies. In 2013, he graduated from Fuller with a PhD in Systematic Theology and a minor in Church History.
He began teaching at Fuller as an adjunct in 2011 and joined full time in 2015, initially serving at the Sacramento regional campus. From 2012 to 2015, Oden taught undergraduate courses in theology and church history at Azusa Pacific University.
His dissertation was published by Fortress Press in 2015 as The Transformative Church: New Ecclesial Models and the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann. In 2018, Fortress Academic published his next book, Hope for the Oppressor: Discovering Freedom Through Transformative Community, which is a liberation theology written for the context of consumerism and competition.
Oden teaches classes in theology and church history as well as community and worship, drawing together a holistic approach to Christian theology in our era. He is also the director of academic integration for Fuller Equip and an ordained minister in the Wesleyan Church.
Publications
Texts:
- The Transformative Church: New Ecclesial Models and the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015.
- How Long? A Trek Through the Wilderness. Newberg, OR: Barclay Press, 2011.
- It’s a Dance: Moving with Holy Spirit. Newberg, OR: Barclay Press, 2007.
Articles and Essays:
- “Passing the Peace: A Pneumatology of Shalom,” FULLER Magazine 9 (September 2017): 70–77.
- “Commentary 1 on Luke 21:5–19” and “Commentary 1 on Luke 23:33–43.” In Connections: A Lectionary Commentary Series. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2019.
- “Theology and the ‘Emerging Church,’” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians. February, 2016. http://www.catalystresources.org/theology-and-the-emerging-church.
- “Obedience is Better than Sacrifice: Atonement as the Re-Establishment of Trust.” Wesleyan Theological Journal 50, no. 1 (2015): 100–115.
- “Liberating Holiness for the Oppressed and the Oppressors.” In A Future for Holiness: Pentecostal Explorations, edited by Lee Roy Martin, 205–224. Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2013.
- “‘Let us not spend our time in trifling’: Susanna Wesley, a Mother to her Sons.” Wesleyan Theological Journal 48, no. 2 (2013): 112–125.
- “Spirits in History.” In Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World: Loosing the Spirits, edited by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong, 71-84. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013.
- “An Emerging Pneumatology: Jürgen Moltmann and the Emerging Church in Conversation.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18, no. 2 (2009): 263–284.