Heythrop College has a thriving research student community, with around 35 students spread across the three departments. The descriptions of research projects given on this page provide a sense of the wide range of interests among the current student body of the Theology department. Many students are attached to one of our Centres or Institutes, where appropriate.

Salah Al-Ansari
Andrew Bayes
Anthony Conlon
Michael Cox
Joseph Gabor  
Leslie Goode
John Gravett
Stefanie Hugh-Donovan
Philip Ind 
Norlan Julia  
In-Gun Kang
Rhona Lewis
James Mather
Flint McGlaughlin 
John Mowbray  
Charlotte Naylor-Davies    
Isabel Olizar  
Ariana Patey
Robert Pearson
Joseph Quigley 
Richard Sudworth
Saju Thomas
Andrzej Toczyski
Rocco Viviano

'The Semiotic Passion' - A Theological Response to Julia Kristeva's Contstruct of the Speaking Being within the 'Theologia Crucis' (a Good Friday dialogue)

I am currently writing the first draft of my doctoral thesis on Julia Kristeva. It seeks to bring her explorations of the status of the ‘subject’ in contemporary culture into dialogue with theology. Julia Kristeva is a renowned French psychoanalyst who not only writes within that tradition but engages in key areas of discourse in contemporary European culture. A number of her texts explore theological themes though not as a believer but as a ‘non-believer for complex philosophical reasons’ (Kristeva). Given the genre of Kristeva’s opus – mainly discursive essays – her work is stimulating and provocative but not systematic. Kristeva’s work is difficult to classify according to modern disciplinary discussions owing to the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of her work. She, at once, draws on and critically analyses the history of philosophy, religion, social and political theory, anthropology, psychoanalysis, semiotics, art, literature, and feminist theory. This makes any engagement interesting but difficult. Central to my thesis is the ‘exhaustion’ of the speaking subject that Kristeva traces. My research seeks to identify the structural causes for the subject’s ‘impasse’ at the heart of modernity and postmodernity. Kristeva calls it the crisis of the ‘psychic space’. My thesis examines this problem in Kristeva’s model, and then offers a theological critique with some original insights into the ways in which the Catholic tradition has resources to meet the situation so well exposed by Kristeva. At the same time, the other aim of the my research is to show how Kristeva is an important dialogue partner and resource for theology.

As a general objective I am researching resources to communicate with secular culture in a non-apologetic way. Kristeva’s synthesis of the Enlightenment tradition is an excellent opportunity to develop a constructive dialogue in the linguistic gap between Church and culture. The insights of this ‘Exodus’ of discourses may deeply affect both, secular humanist and Christian spiritualities. It can contribute, from the part of systematic theology, to a relevant model of the ‘secular’, which at present is missing in mainstream Catholicism. My research, through the encounter with Kristeva, gathers data and seeks argumentative strategies for an ‘inter-religious’ or ‘intra-religious’ dialogue among the classic ‘secular’ and religious narratives of Europe.

Supervisor: Dr. James Hanvey SJ

'Gift and sacrifice: What does contemporary social anthropology have to contribute to theological understanding of their relationship?'

Recent theological interpretations of sacrifice have employed concepts of the "gift" in a manner inadequately informed by the perspective of social anthropology.  Social anthropology, for its part, is no longer much preoccupied with the concerns of theologians.  I seek to initiate an engagement between the two, especially in regard to sacrifice and its relation to the gift.  I investigate relevant anthropological discussion - especially Godelier's understanding of the relation of sacrifice and exchange, and attempt to formulate a version of Godelier's typology that is sustainable in the light of subsequent anthropological work (e.g. de Coppet, A. Strathern, Rio).

'The Priest in Asia as Man of the Word: Karl Rahner's Theology of Priesthood as Starting Point Towards a Theology of Ordained Ministry in Asia.'

This thesis seeks to offer and develop an alternative model of priesthood  for the Asian context, using Rahner's theology of priesthood as point of departure.  Examining Rahner's theology of the priesthood as well as the model proposed by Vatican II, the thesis argues that Rahner's theology and his point of departure in determining the nature of the priesthood, that the priesthood is essentially a ministry of the Word, is an appropriate framework for a theology of ordained ministry in Asia, and that this model of the priesthood, based primarily on the Word, best squares with Asian Church's understanding of itself and of its mission in Asia.

'The reclamation of biblical concepts: prophecy and sacrifice according to Girard and Brueggemann.'

This is a study of biblical concepts, and particularly of prophecy and sacrifice: what they are, how their perception has changed in contemporary times, and the effect on that situation of the thinking of Rene Girard and Walter Brueggemann.  The heart of the project is a mutually critical correlation of the two writers, to discover how their ideas compare, how far they are compatible, and whether they can be put together to assemble a binocular view of these complex subjects.

'Theology of the Historical Jesus'

I began my research considering what Jesus understood by the coming kingdom of God, or of heaven, that he spoke about so often, basing the research on references in the Hebrew scriptures and intertestamentary (second temple) writings to God coming to reign as king.  Now I am concentrating on Jesus' teaching about sin, judgment, punishment and forgiveness, approached through his sayings about the kingdom.

'Paul's power and authority language: a challenge to 21st Century bible translation'
 
My project takes in two main key areas of research – 21st century hermeneutics and Pauline studies. I have particular interest in the methodologies behind new translations of the bible and their interaction with the historical-critical methods used in academic biblical studies.. Such translations use artists, authors and musicians as much as biblical scholars to interpret the text. This significant shift in biblical translation practice requires focussed historical-critical investigation.

Over the past decade the shape of non-denominational churches has been changing, moving away from older models of ecclesiastical hierarchy toward a conception of community dynamics that brings with it a new church praxis. My work will be concentrated on ‘The Voice’TM, published in October 2008.  This new translation of the New Testament is produced by the theological thinkers driving the ‘emerging church’ and ‘emergent theology’  movement in the United States. Its translators claim that, rather than being stifled by biblical criticism, in their translation ‘the voice of God is heard as clearly as when He first revealed His truth’. Investigating how this movement’s theological presuppositions determine their translation of the Greek text, I shall develop a methodology of analysis applicable to a wider range of texts. This will be done as a case study focusing on the language of power and authority in Paul’s writing. My own linguistic and exegetical work on this language—viewed within its first century context—shall inform my analysis of the translation methods of The Voice. My work would also contribute to the sociological study of the emerging church as a movement and important development in Christian culture.

'Roman Catholic Church Perspectives on Religious Freedom in the Muslim World: a Study on Contemporary Religion in International Relations.'
 
The focus of my research is the embedding of religious freedom into the Roman Catholic Church in the period since the Second Vatican Council.  This will be explored from three perspectives:  the rethinking of Church teaching on religious freedom at Vatican II; the role of the modern papacy in expressing Church teaching on religious freedom in the context of a globalising Church; and religious freedom in the diplomatic relations of the Holy See.  This research into religious freedom in the Catholic Church’s ecclesiological and theological thought, as expressed by the modern papacy and by the Holy See’s diplomatic relations, will provide the foundations on which an original and contemporary analysis of Catholic perspectives on religious freedom in the Muslim world can be built, as a study on the role of contemporary religion in international relations. 

'The Life and Thought of Charles de Foucauld: A Christian Eremitical Vocation to Islam and His Contribution to the Understanding of Muslim-Christian Relations within the Catholic Tradition'

My research investigates the life and work of Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a French Catholic hermit who lived in French Colonial North Africa, and the influence of his interactions with the Muslim population of the region within the wider Church. On the frontlines of Muslim-Christian relations, first as a soldier and then as a priest and hermit, Foucauld represents a significant figure in our understanding of the history of relations between Islam and the Catholic Church in the Modern Era. Through an examination of his life and writings my research explores the ways in which Foucauld revitalized the Church’s eremitic tradition for modern Muslim-Christian relations.

'The Art of the Possible; is it possible today?'

My research involves reading the letters, papers and correspondence of Cardinals Bourne, Hinsley and Griffin concerning education. These documents are not yet catalogued in detail and are lodged in the Westminster Diocesan Archives.

Each of the Cardinals enters into dialogue with the Church, each other and the State over educational matters. I hope to unpack this, as yet, untold conversation of faith, hope and love.

During the years of the war, Westminster was the only ‘free’ Catholic voice in Europe and even this was constrained by Allied political realism. From the end of the ‘Battle of Britain’ there seemed one abiding question what post-War society were people dying for and how would education contribute to its creation?

Could such cooperation between Church and State occur today?

'The Church of England and Islam: tracing the Political Theology of contemporay Christian-Muslim relations.'

The thesis aims to research recent developments in formal documents of the Church of England in relation to other faiths, and in particular, Islam and to reflect upon the implications of a perceived "ecclesial-turn" in Christian-Muslim relations for the political theology of the Church of England. In the light of controversies concerning speeches and articles on the subject of Isalm in Britain by church leaders such as Archbishop Rowan Williams, what theologies underpin an understanding of the presence of a political religion such as Islam in the midst of parishes for which the Church of England is still established by law as the cure of souls to all of those inhabitants? The thesis seeks to connect the contemporary ecclesial-turn in Christian-Muslim relations within Anglicanism to the broader debate of Christian political theology as regards the place of religion in a plural public square, paying particular attention to the work of the celebrated Anglican Islamicist Birshop Kenneth Cragg.