Dr. J. Steven O'Malley
John T. Seamands Professor of Methodist Holiness History
Expertise:
- Historical Theology
- Church History
- Pietism
- Christian Renewal
- Discipleship
Education:
- B.A., Indiana Central University, 1964; B.D., Yale University Divinity School, 1967; Ph.D., The Graduate School of Drew University, 1970.
Dr. O’Malley has taught church history and historical theology for more than thirty five years. His distinguished professorial career has included stints at five different institutions: Drew University (1968-70; visiting professor, fall 1999), the University of Indianapolis (1970-72), the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University (1972-77), the School of Theology of Oral Roberts University (1977-85) and Asbury Seminary (1985-present). He was installed into the John T. Seamands Chair of Methodist Holiness History in March 1994. An ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, Dr. O’Malley has preached and lectured throughout the United States and Europe, and has served as pastor of a United Methodist congregation in Graz, Austria. He has earned recognition for his research and publications in post-Reformation and modern Church history, with special emphasis upon Pietism, German-American evangelicalism and the Holiness movement. He is the author of the definitive study of the Otterbeins’ theology, Pilgrimage of Faith: The Legacy of the Otterbeins, and a study entitled Theology and German-American Evangelicalism: Sources in Discipleship and Sanctification. He has edited more than twenty volumes in the Pietist and Wesleyan Studies series for Scarecrow and is the author of one volume in the four-volume series on the History of United Methodist Missions. Recent scholarship includes Living Grace (a study in Wesleyan systematic theology translated from German, Abingdon), and a position paper to be presented by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, to the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church He currently serves as director of the Center for the Study of World Christian Revitaization Movements as Asbury Seminary, and is general editor of the Revitatlization Studies Series, published by the Center. He is married to the former Angeline Gommel, who earned the Ph.D. in family relations-child development at Oklahoma State University. The O’Malleys have jointly conducted workshops in family life at numerous sites, including Fuller Seminary. Angie was a member of the Asbury College faculty from 1986 to 1993 and is now teaching at the University of Kentucky. The O’Malleys have two daughters: Sarah and Karen.