Van Bühren was born in Bad Kreuznach. At the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Trier, he finished his secondary school education in 1982. Between 1984 and 1991 van Bühren studied Art history at the University of Trier and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In Munich in 1988 he converted to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1994 he received the PhD in Art history at the University of Cologne. The dissertation was published in 1998 as The works of mercy in the Art from the 12th-18th centuries. Iconographic changes caused by the modern reception of Rhetorics. It explains art theory and rhetorics as origins of a persuasive mode of representation in early modern art. Between 1992 and 1995 van Bühren worked as pedagogical assistant in the Museumsdienst Köln at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and Museum Ludwig in Cologne, in the data processing service of the Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, and as freelance collaborator in the Domforum Köln at the Cologne Cathedral and the romanesque churches of Cologne. From 1996 to 1998 he was chief copy Editor at the German publishing houseVerlag Schnell & Steiner in Regensburg, whose founders in 1934 invented the species of small church guidebooks, which today are produced a million times. In 2006 van Bühren was awarded the doctorate degree in Theology at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. The dissertation he published in 2008 in the series Konziliengeschichte as Art and Church in the 20th century. The reception of the Second Vatican Council. The prologue has written Friedhelm Hofmann, Bishop of Würzburg and at that time a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church as well as of the Commission for Science and Culture of the German Bishops' Conference. Since 2006 van Bühren is teaching Art History as Associate Professor at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. The focus of his research and his lectures at the School of Church Communications is on Art and Architecture as Communication Media, at the School of Theology on Liturgical Art from Antiquity to the Present and Christian Art History. At many universities, these subjects do not rate among the required courses within the teaching program of the studies of Catholic theology, although the Second Vatican Council claimed the consideration of art. The University of Santa Croce tries to counter this deficit inside of today’s theological education. On 1 July 2014 van Bühren was appointed as consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture. Since 2014, he is Editorial Board member of the peer-reviewed journal Church, Communication and Culture, edited by Santa Croce’s School of Communications and published by Routledge. Recently, van Bühren's communication studies explain the importance of art history for Religious Tourism, cultural journalism, religious correspondents and Church media relations. His current lectures include courses on Christian Art and Architecture in Rome. From Antiquity to the Present, open to students of US universities with campus in Rome. These courses intersperse classroom sessions with site visits. Students are encouraged to combine both the visual and contextual analysis of artworks.
