Research Degrees Panel

Simon Oliver is chair of the Research Degrees Panel. He is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at Durham University, Head of the Department of Theology and Religion, and residentiary Canon at Durham Cathedral. Simon has been a member of the RDP for over ten years. His research and teaching focus on systematic and philosophical theology, particularly the doctrine of creation, Christian Neoplatonism, the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and theology’s engagement with contemporary philosophy. You can read about core aspects of his work in Creation: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Simon has recently overseen a two-year research project focussing on theological engagements with the understanding of human and non-human life in the work of the philosophers Henri Bergson, Hans Jonas, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. His PhD students research in a variety of areas, from the metaphysics of beauty in Aquinas to theological engagements with the environmental crisis.

Simon’s priestly ministry is exercised predominantly at Durham Cathedral. He was previously an associate priest in parishes in Nottingham, west Wales and Oxford, as well as a university and hospice chaplain. Simon was a member of the Anglican Communion Faith and Order Commission from 2009 to 2021.

Mark J. Cartledge is the Principal of London School of Theology and Professor of Practical Theology.

His research over the years has combined a fascination with the empirical study of contemporary ecclesial life with various aspects of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. He has also contributed to constructive Pentecostal and Charismatic theology as it has developed over the last three decades. More recently, Mark has established an interest in the areas of public theology and digital ecclesiology. He has supervised PhD students on various topics in relation to Pentecostal and Charismatic studies, for example: social justice, eucharistic theology, theological rationality, pneumatology and poverty, theological anthropology, Spirit Baptism, spirituality, healing praxis, conversion, intra-congregational conflict, prophecy, theodicy, African pneumatology, spiritual warfare, ecotheology, ordinary Christology and ecclesiology. His current research students are studying topics such as: identity and mission among Methodists in Cornwall, Pentecostal spirituality and the entertainment industry in LA, apostleship among Caribbean Pentecostals, socio-cultural analysis of American Evangelicalism and video games and Pentecostal spirituality.

Mark’s current research focuses on public theology and digital ecclesiology. For public theology, his publications include: (with Simo Frestadius), eds., Pentecostal Public Theology: Engaged Christianity and Transformed Society in Europe, CHARIS: Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies series (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024); (with Kimberly Ervin Alexander, Melissa Archer, and Michael D. Palmer), eds., Sisters, Mothers, Daughters: Pentecostal Perspectives on Violence Against Women (Leiden: Brill, 2022); and The Holy Spirit and Public Life: Empowering Ecclesial Praxis (Minneapolis, MN: Lexington Books / Fortress Academic Press, 2022).

For digital ecclesiology and the use of digital research methods within practical theology, see ‘Pentecostalism and the Eucharist in a Digital Age: A Theological Reflection on Bill Johnson’s Praxis’, Journal of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, and ‘Empirical Theology as Theological Netnography: Methodological Considerations’, Journal of Empirical Theology, 35.2 (2022), pp. 187-204.

Mark’s ministry experience is varied, having worked in parish, university chaplaincy and theological education. His experience as a theological educator has been in both confessional denominational/interdenominational contexts and secular university departments of theology and religion. His current ministry is concentrated in leading an independent, interdenominational theological college offering the range of degrees from BA to PhD. He is involved in all aspects of college life including some teaching, research supervision and worship. He also represents the college at wider events, including preaching at churches from time to time. At weekends he participates in a local parish church. He has permission to officiate in the dioceses of London and Oxford.

I am Professor of Christian History and Theology, University of Exeter.

My research interests include the history and theology of the early church, especially in the 4th-5th centuries, with a particular interest in the ‘Cappadocians’, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus. My recent research has focused on understanding early Christian literary production as a craft which is both beautiful and useful – that is, which is a unity of literary/rhetorical qualities and theological argument. My current project, ‘God and Good Speech in Early Christianity’, asks how Christians thought of virtues and good modes of speech in light of both biblical exegesis and classical rhetorical and philosophical traditions. All PhD projects in Exeter have at least two supervisors. I am currently co-supervising students on a range of projects, including: Amphilochius of Iconium; sin in Chrysostom and Berdyaev; salvation in Gregory of Nyssa and Bulgakov; worship and the priesting of creation; Christocentrism in Georges Florovsky and Henri de Lubac; the pastoral theology of Joseph Alleine; theologies of the Eucharist.

Recent and forthcoming publications include Ludlow, Morwenna. Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Ludlow, Morwenna. ‘Homilies on the Lord’s Prayer IV: “Thy Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven; Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”’. In Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Our Father: An English Translation with Commentary and Supporting Studies: Proceedings of the 14th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Paris, 4-7 September 2018), ed Matthieu Cassin, Hélène Grelier-Deneux, and Françoise Vinel, 355–81. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, volume 168. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021; and Ludlow, Morwenna. ‘The Scope and Limits of Episcopal Collaboration in Fourth Century Cappadocia’. In Towards Interchangeability: Reflections on Episcopacy in Theory and Practice, edited by Mark D. Chapman, Matthias Grebe, Friederike Nüssel, and Frank-Dieter Fischbach, 14–28. Beihefte Zur Ökumenischen Rundschau, Nr. 135. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2022.

I work closely with other scholars in the Gregory of Nyssa International Colloquia, the last one of which was held at the University of Exeter in September 2022 on the topic of Gregory of Nyssa’s De anima et resurrectione. My Gresham Lecture, ‘Women Leaders in Early Christianity’ (Gresham College, London, 5 April 2023), can be viewed on YouTube (with further resources at gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/women-christianity).

I am a self-supporting priest in the Church of England. Since my ordination in 2015, I have been licensed to Exeter Cathedral, where I currently hold the honorary position of Canon Theologian.

Ben Quash is Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King’s College London. He is founding Director of the Centre for Arts & the Sacred at King’s (ASK), as well as general editor of The Visual Commentary on Scripture, a pioneering open-access collaboration between theologians, art historians, and biblical scholars from all over the world.

Ben works principally in the area of Christian theology, with a longstanding interest in the 19th-century background to modern theology, 20th- and 21st-century systematics, philosophical theology, and Christian ethics. He is especially interested in how the arts can play a part in renewing and refreshing engagement with the Bible and Christian doctrine. His publications include Found Theology: History, Imagination, and the Holy Spirit (T&T Clark, 2013) and Theology, Modernity, and the Visual Arts (Brepols, 2024; co-edited with Chloë Reddaway). He currently directs two major research projects: The Visual Commentary on Scripture  and Theology & the Visual Arts.

Ben is Canon Theologian of both Bradford and Coventry Cathedrals, and an Honorary Assistant Priest in the Diocese of Ely.

Jenn Strawbridge is Associate Professor in New Testament Studies at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford. She is also Director of Graduate Studies for Oxford’s Faculty of Theology and Religion.

Jenn teaches and researches in areas that include: Pauline literature, 1 Peter, Patristic reception of the New Testament, early Christian theology, and contemporary approaches to New Testament interpretation (e.g. Womanist, Feminist, Black and African American, Disability, Queer, Ecological, and Postcolonial studies). Jenn has recently supervised doctoral work on reception of Paul in the 2nd century, Marcion, New Testament ‘hymns’, the Law in Romans 7-8, and Paul’s wealth ethics. She has recently published on New Testament poetry and hymns, Colossians and Credal formation, Romans, 1 Peter, and the doctrine of the Trinity, as well as an edited volume on Deliverance Ministry.

Her current work focuses on a monograph on Sightlessness in the New Testament, as well as articles on sensory impairment in the New Testament, Pauline pneumatology, and disability studies and the Council of Nicaea.

Jenn convened the St Augustine’s Seminars from 2018-2022, which oversaw the preparation of all biblical materials for the 2022 Lambeth Conference, and since 2021 has been co-Editor in Chief of Journal for the Study of the New Testament.

Jenn has been ordained for 20 years (2004) and served in full-time stipendiary ministry for 12 of those years, including as an oncology, hospice, and trauma hospital chaplain and priest-in-charge of a large parish (300+ on a Sunday). She is currently a licensed NSM at St Andrew’s Old Headington, Canon Theologian in the Diocese of Blackburn, Foundation Governor at St Andrew’s CoE Primary School, and serves on the Church of England’s Faith and Order and Liturgical Commissions.