J. Rodman Williams is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina (A.B. degree), of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (B.D. and Th. M. degrees), and Columbia University in New York (Ph.D. degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics). He has served as a chaplain in the U.S. Marine Corps, taught philosophy and religion at Beloit College in Wisconsin, pastored the First Presbyterian Church of Rockford, Illinois, taught theology and philosophy of religion at Austin Presbyterian Seminary in Texas, and served as president and professor of theology at Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, California. He is presently professor of theology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is married and has three children.
Dr. Williams is the author of Contemporary Existentialism
and Christian Faith (1965), The Era of the Spirit (1971),
The Pentecostal Reality (1972), Ten Teachings (1974),
and The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today (1980). He has now
completed writing a three volume work entitled Renewal
Theology (Vol. 1, God, the World, and Redemption,
1988; Vol. 2, Salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living,
1990; and Vol. 3, The Church, the Kingdom, and Last Things,
1992). The three volumes are presently published as one
unabridged volume (Zondervan,
1996) of Renewal Theology.
Dr. Williams has been active in the charismatic movement as an early president of the international Presbyterian Charismatic Communion, as a participant for several years in the Vatican-Pentecostal dialogue, and as the organizer and leader of the first European Charismatic Leaders Conferences. He has also served as president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies.
An article about Dr. Williams' life and teachings may be found in Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, ed. by Walter A. Elwell, Baker Book House, 1993. A Festschrift entitled Spiritual Renewal: Essays in Honor of J. Rodman Williams, ed. by Mark Wilson, was published in 1994. Further biographical data may be found (under "John Rodman Williams") in the Dictionary of American Scholars (8th edition), Who's Who in American Religion (4th edition), and Who's Who in America (48th edition).