Oscar García-Johnson

Oscar García-Johnson, associate professor of theology and Latino/a studies, was named chief of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Fuller in 2021. Prior to that, he assumed leadership of Fuller’s Centro Latino in October 2015 as associate dean, and in 2020 was named academic dean for the Center for the Study of Hispanic Church and Community (Centro Latino). Before joining the Fuller faculty in 2008, he taught for ten years as an adjunct faculty member at Fuller while serving as a regional minister with the American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles for 11 years and planting four new churches in Southern California.

Born in Honduras, García-Johnson immigrated to the United States as a young adult to complete a degree in electrical engineering. While in college, he committed to Jesus Christ and experienced a vocational conversion into philosophical and theological studies, leading him to a life that has commuted between the academy, the church, and the city.

García-Johnson teaches in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. His research methodology interlaces de/postcolonial studies, classical theologies, and US Latino/Latin American studies into a critical hermeneutic he calls Transoccidentality. His forthcoming theological series in Spanish, Teología del Nuevo Mundo with Editorial CLIE (Barcelona, Spain) is a groundbreaking multivolume work that uses decoloniality, Christian doctrine, and practical theology as shaping discourses to form the Christian global citizen of the XXI century in a post-pandemic world. His other writings include Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South (IVP Academic, 2019), Conversaciones Teológicas del Sur Global Americano (coedited, Puertas Abiertas/Wipf & Stock, 2016), Theology without Borders: Introduction to Global Conversations, coauthored with William Dyrness (Baker Academic, 2015), ¡Jesús, Hazme Como tú! 40 Maneras de Imitar a Cristo (Wipf & Stock, 2014), The Mestizo/a Community of the Spirit: A Latino/a Postmodern Ecclesiology (Pickwick, 2009). He has contributed to many books and volumes including Theologies of the Land (Cascades, 2020), T&T Clark Handbook of Pneumatology (T&T Clark, 2020), T&T Clark Companion to Political Theology (T&T Clark, 2019), The Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South (Rowman & Littlefield 2019), The Spirit Over the Earth: Pneumatology in the Majority World (Eerdmanns, 2016), The Gospel after Christendom: New Voices, New Cultures, New Expressions (Baker Academic, 2012), Vivir y servir en el exilio: Lecturas teológicas de la experiencia latina en los Estados Unidos (Kairos, 2008), and Pasando la Antorcha (Kerigma, 2005).

In addition to teaching courses at Fuller, García-Johnson is involved in faith-rooted holistic justice with Matthew 25 of Southern California, LA RED, and CCDA. He offers conferences on leadership development and decolonial theology and ministry across the Americas (US included), Asia, and Africa. Cofounder of Omega Geñeration project, he is committed to facilitating thriving ministry environments for Latinx millennials and Latina women.

He is a member of the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana, the American Academy of Religion, and La Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana.