Professor Wilhelmus Valkenberg, Ph.D., M.A., M.Div.

Wilhelmus “Pim” Valkenberg, M.A., M.Div., is an expert on interreligious dialogue. He is Ordinary Professor of Religion and Culture at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he serves as the Director of the Institute for Interreligious Studies and Dialogue.
Prof. Valkenberg was born in the Netherlands. He studied theology and religious studies in Utrecht, earning his M.A. in theology and his M.Div. in pastoral studies. From 1987 to 2007, he was an assistant and later associate professor of dogmatic theology and the theology of religions at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (Netherlands). There, in 1991, he helped found the Department of Religious Studies with a focus on interreligious dialogue.
At different points in his career, Prof. Valkenberg has been a visiting fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), St. Augustine’s College in Johannesburg (South Africa), and the University of Notre Dame (Indiana). Between 2006 and 2011 he was a visiting professor and an associate professor of theology at Loyola University Maryland.
Prof. Valkenberg’s research concentrates on Christian–Muslim dialogue in the context of Abrahamic partnership. He is the author or editor of several books, including: The Three Rings (Leuven 2005), The Polemical Dialogue (Saarbrücken 1997), and World Religions in Dialogue: A Comparative Theological Approach (Winona MN: Anselm Academic, 2013). His forthcoming publications include No Power over God’s Bounty: A Christian Commentary on the “People of Scripture” in the Qur’an (Leuven 2019) and Brill’s Companion to Comparative Theology (Leiden 2020).
Praise for Pim Valkenberg
“Prof. Valkenberg is a gifted scholar/teacher who has brought to Christian-Muslim relations a rare depth of critical insight, a palpable generosity of spirit, and a refreshing sense of passion for the pursuit of truth, justice, and compassion in dialogue.”– Scott C. Alexander, Ph.D., Professor of Islamic Studies & Christian–Muslim Relations, Catholic Theological Union“Pim (Wilhelmus G.B.M.) Valkenberg is a respected Catholic theologian, well-grounded in tradition and contemporary theology. He has also, very importantly, cultivated over the years a deep commitment to comparative theological studies, with particular interest in Islam in both its classical and contemporary forms. He is therefore very well placed to draw Islamic theology and practice into Catholic theological reflection, in a way that does justice to both Islam and the Catholic tradition. He shows us persuasively how a Christian commitment is perfectly compatible with learning deeply from another religious tradition. An added virtue of his work is that this Dutch-born scholar knows well both the American and European worlds of theological studies.”– Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Parkman Professor of Divinity, Harvard University