The Revd Canon Professor James Woodward, Principal
Principal of Sarum College. James is a practical theologian who specialises in health and healing, old age, theological reflection and end of life care.
Sarum College has a small faculty that is enhanced by a wider teaching and research community. Visiting Scholars play an active role in that wider network by helping to shape the future direction of research and teaching by sharing their expertise with our students, faculty and other scholars associated with our work.
The Revd Christina (Tina) Beardsley SMMS is a Church of England priest with a commitment to healing and wholeness, and to advocacy for LGBTI+ people, especially trans people. Having worked for twenty-two years in the Portsmouth Diocese, Tina spent the following fifteen years in healthcare chaplaincy at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London, where she was head of department from 2008-2016. Tina now assists in her local parish in West London, while continuing to speak and write about spirituality, gender identity and sexuality. Her other interests include Victorian religion and dance and movement as a spiritual practice.
Books published:
Trans Affirming Churches: How to Celebrate Gender-Variant People and Their Loved Ones (Jessica Kingsley, 2020) Co-author with Chris Dowd
Transfaith: A Transgender Pastoral Resource (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2018). Co-author with Chris Dowd.
This is my body: hearing the theology of transgender Christians (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2016). Co-editor with Michelle O’Brien
Unutterable Love: The Passionate Life and Preaching of F. W. Robertson, (Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, 2009)
Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand is a senior member of the London-based Pears Foundation team and director of the foundation’s operating programme, JHub. In this role, she founded JDOV, a Jewish TED-style video platform which invites inspiring speakers to give the “Jewish talk of their life”: www.jdov.org.
Shoshana appears regularly on BBC Radio’s “Pause for Thought” and “Something Understood” programmes and also presents frequently at conferences such as TEDxJerusalem, Limmud, and Greenbelt on issues around faith, identity and leadership. She is the author of numerous articles on Jewish leadership and innovation, as well as The Barefoot Book of Jewish Tales, an illustrated collection of Jewish stories for all faiths and all ages.
Previously, Shoshana served as Vice-President of the Wexner Heritage Foundation in New York, and she currently serves on the faculty of Faith in Leadership and the board of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations.
She was ordained as a rabbi in 1997 at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Tom Clammer OC trained for ordination at Wescott House in Cambridge, and then served in parishes in the city of Gloucester, and in rural Gloucestershire before becoming Precentor of Salisbury. Since 2019 he has worked as a freelance theological educator, liturgist and spiritual director. His PhD thesis examined theology of evil and the devil in the liturgy. He is a novice brother of the Anglican Order of Cistercians.
Dr Ann Conway-Jones is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. She is also an Accredited Lay Worker of the Church of England.
Ann’s PhD thesis, involving a range of Jewish and Christian mystical writings on the heavenly temple, has been published as Gregory of Nyssa’s Tabernacle Imagery in Its Jewish and Christian Contexts (OUP, 2014). She has continued to research the exegetical foundations of early Christian mystical theology, recently producing a series of audio lectures entitled Moses, Mount Sinai, and Early Christian Mystics.
Ann is also interested in early Jewish-Christian relations, and in the new insights that Jewish New Testament scholarship is developing. She has written articles aimed at Christian preachers in The Expository Times and Theology, on talking about Jews and Judaism with respect, even if that involves challenging New Testament anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Ann combines up-to-date scholarship with over twenty years’ experience of teaching adults. She is passionate about making academic research accessible and relevant. She is an associate tutor at The Queen’s Foundation; Woodbrooke Quaker Studies Centre; Oxford University Department of Continuing Education; and the Birmingham Diocese. She writes regularly for Roots: Worship and Learning Resources for the Whole Church.
Ann is actively involved in Jewish–Christian dialogue. For four years she served as Honorary Secretary of The Council of Christians and Jews and is now Chair of Birmingham CCJ.
The Revd Dr Jonathan Dean is the Director of Learning for Ministry for the Methodist Church in Britain. A Methodist presbyter, he has served in local church ministry, in chaplaincy in a range of contexts, as a university lecturer and in theological education. Born in the Black Country and raised in the Cambridgeshire Fens, he’s enjoyed living and working both in the USA and the UK, and in places of great diversity and human variety. He currently lives in north London.
Keith combines organisational consultancy, research and teaching and parochial ministry.
He has been an organisational consultant for over 20 years, and for 12 of those was a partner in Telos Partners in Windsor. He has helped leaders of organisations across the sectors make the changes necessary for long-term, sustainable success, using models derived from systems thinking. He is passionate about helping the church to make use of insights and practices derived from an informed and theologically integrated approach to organisation theory.
Keith delights in working with and supporting church leaders who seek to engage positively with the challenges posed to the church by the world today. He is the author of Creating the Future of the Church: A Practical Guide to Addressing Whole System Change, published by SPCK in 2013. He completed his doctoral studies at Roehampton University in 2022. His thesis explores the relationship between organisation theory and theology in the context of an assessment of the ecclesiological and organisational rationales of the Church of England’s Renewal and Reform programme.
Keith was ordained in the Church of England in 1990 and is currently interim priest-in-charge of St John the Baptist, West Byfleet in Guildford Diocese. He aims to develop the leadership element in Sarum’s work so that it combines theoretical rigour with practical effectiveness through consultancy, coaching and tailored leadership development programmes.
The Revd Azariah France-Williams is a priest at the Ascension Hulme, a member of the HeartEdge church network which focuses work around four C’s: congregations, culture, commerce, and compassion. He has been a priest with the Church of England for 10 years. For the first 6 years he ministered on a group of housing estates in an area of deprivation. His role included community organising, creating social events and supporting people in great need. For the next 4 years, Azariah spent time in a suburban setting, enjoying coffee, enduring a ParkRun, and roaming the parish hearing stories.
He writes poetry and prose, is a podcaster, and his most recent book is Ghostship: Institutional Racism and the Church of England, available through SCM Press here.
Email: shacker@sarum.ac.uk
Web: www.sophiehacker.com
Sophie Hacker has artwork in public and private collections across the UK and abroad. Her current projects focus on stained glass, collaborations with musicians and poets and numerous ecclesiastical commissions.
The Revd Dr Ayla Lepine is the Ahmanson Fellow in Religion and Art at the National Gallery in London. Her work includes teaching the King’s College London and National Gallery collaborative MA in Christianity and the Arts, and building diverse new networks within arts organisations and faith communities. Her MA and PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art focused on the modern British responses to the Middle Ages, especially the Gothic Revival and Pre-Raphaelite movement.
She has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Courtauld and at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, and was Lecturer and Fellow at the University of Essex School of Philosophy and Art History. She trained for the priesthood at Westcott House in Cambridge, and was ordained in 2018.
Dr Lepine lectures and publishes widely, and her current research is exploring Evelyn Underhill and art historical interactions with St Paul’s description of the Fruits of the Spirit. Her publications include the co-edited books Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias (Courtauld 2015), Architecture and Modern Religious Communities 1850-1970: Building the Kingdom (2018), as well as articles in British Art Studies, the Journal of Theology and Sexuality, Tate’s In Focus series, and the Sculpture Journal on topics including Anglican altarpieces, London church architecture, and the painter Winifred Knights.
Email: Deborah.Lewer@glasgow.ac.uk
Dr Debbie Lewer is Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Glasgow. She has worked there since 2001, prior to which she taught at Manchester University, University of East Anglia, University College London and Christie’s Education.
Her PhD was on Dada in Zurich and she is a specialist and has published widely on 20th-century German art in particular. She co-runs an MLitt programme at Glasgow, Art: Politics: Transgression and teaches across a wide range of other topics, including architecture, photography, literature and performance and on earlier periods in art. In 2009-10 she held a Senior Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship at the University of Bonn. She has also been a visiting lecturer at Northwestern University, Evanston USA.
She has a special interest in art and theology and is currently preparing a book in this field. She has also been involved in the training of ordinands and is a regular speaker in churches, on retreats and at conferences and festivals. In her spare time she paints.
Twitter: @RevRachelMann
Website: www.rachelmann.co.uk
Church Website: www.st-nicholas-church.org.uk
The Revd Dr Rachel Mann is Area Dean of Bury and Rossendale. Her most recent book is a debut novel, The Gospel of Eve. Rachel’s research and writing interests include poetry, literature and spirituality, as well as trauma, gender and sexuality. She is a Visiting Teaching Fellow at the Manchester Writing School, Manchester Met University.
Professor Jolyon Mitchell is Professor of Communication, Arts and Religion at Edinburgh University. His work has focused on peace building, violence and arts in warfare.
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian who brings interests in language, conflict and theology to his work. He hosts Poetry Unbound from On Being and his work has been published in Poetry Ireland, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day and Harvard Review, among others. His books include volumes of poetry, prayers and prose. From 2014-2019 he was the leader of Corrymeela, Ireland’s oldest reconciliation community.
Pádraig lives in Ireland with his partner Paul Doran, with whom he co-founded the Tenx9 storytelling project. Pádraig’s recently published work includes Borders and Belonging, coauthored with Glenn Jordan; an essay in The Book of Queer Prophets, edited by by Ruth Hunt; 15 sonnets on the stations in When Did You See Me Naked, edited by Reaves and Tombs. Pádraig holds a pontifical degree in Divinity validated by St. Patrick’s college in Maynooth; an MTh from Queen’s in Belfast (dissertation: Jesus and the Marginalised; a narrative exploration of human encounter in the gospel of Mark) and is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow exploring poetry and prayer. Additionally he holds qualifications in adult education and conflict resolution, with emphasis on group dynamics of conflict.
Canon Mark Oakley is Dean of Chapel at St John’s College, Cambridge. He writes and broadcasts on poetry, spirituality and human rights. He is a trustee of the Civil Liberties Trust, an Ambassador for Stop Hate UK, and a Visiting Lecturer at Kings College, London.
Twitter: @CSBibleViolence
Web: csbvbristol.org.uk
Facebook: facebook.com/CSBVBristolBaptistCollege
Helen was a nephrologist (kidney doctor) when God called her to Baptist ministry. She trained at Bristol Baptist College and then became Associate Minister at Victoria Park Baptist Church in South Bristol, where she worked part-time for six years. She is now Associate Minister at Westbury on Trym Baptist Church, Bristol.
Helen has a Masters in Missional Church Leadership, another Masters in Biblical Studies, and a PhD in Old Testament. Her main research interests are in the narrative portions of the Hebrew Bible. Her second Masters dissertation was on ‘total annihilation’ in Deuteronomy and Joshua, her PhD thesis was on aspects of humour in the book of Kings, and her current research interest is in violence and Judges.
Helen is passionate about helping people to get to grips with the Bible, because she has seen its power to transform lives. She loves to study it, preach it, teach it, encourage others to study and understand it, and help others to learn to read it in its original languages.
Helen loves to go on adventures with her husband and three teenage daughters, and to read anything that makes her think.
Recent Publications:
Dr Eve Poole writes and teaches on leadership, capitalism and consumerism. She has a BA from Durham, an MBA from Edinburgh, and a PhD in theology and capitalism from Cambridge. She was Third Church Estates Commissioner from 2018-2021, following earlier careers at Deloitte, Ashridge Business School and Gordonstoun. Her recent books are Leadersmithing, Capitalism’s Toxic Assumptions and Buying God.
Mark Pryce is Director of Ministry for Church of England Birmingham, and Chaplain to His Majesty The King. A published poet and practical theologian, Mark’s work contributes to the vital place of poetry in Christian spirituality, liturgy and public theology, gender studies and ethnographic research.
Professor Anthony G. Reddie is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture in Regent’s Park College, in the University of Oxford. He is also an Extraordinary Professor of Theological Ethics and a Research Fellow with the University of South Africa. He is the first Black person to get an ‘A’ rating in Theology and Religious studies in the South African National Research Foundation. This designation means that he is a leading international researcher. He has a BA in History and a PhD in Education (with theology) both degrees conferred by the University of Birmingham. He is a prolific author of books, articles and chapters in edited books. His latest book is the co-edited Intercultural Preaching edited with Seidel Abel Boanerges with Pamela Searle.
Reddie is the author of Theologizing Brexit: A Liberationist and Postcolonial Critique (Routledge, 2019). This book is the first intercultural and postcolonial theological exploration of the Brexit phenomenon. His previous book was Journeying to Justice (Paternoster Press, 2017) (co-edited with Wale Hudson Roberts and Gale Richards). He is the Editor of Black Theology: An International Journal. He is a recipient of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2020 Lambeth, Lanfranc Award for Education and Scholarship, given for ‘exceptional and sustained contribution to Black Theology in Britain and Beyond’.
Fr Jarel Robinson-Brown is Assistant Curate at St Botolph-without-Aldgate in the City of London and Vice-Chair of OneBodyOneFaith. Prior to this he was Associate Chaplain at King’s College London and served as a Methodist Minister in Wales and South East London.
His research interests are in the History of Early Christianity, particularly in North Africa and Egyptian Late Antiquity. He also writes in the areas of sexuality, gender, ethnicity, Black Liberation Theology, Queer Theology and Christianity and the arts.
His most recent book is Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer: The Church and the Famine of Grace, published by SCM Press in 2021.
Dr Nick Shepherd is a practical theologian currently working for the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England on the implementation of recommendations from the 2017 Setting God’s People Free report. This role works across dioceses to shape a culture that better enables the everyday faith of the whole people of God and a flourishing of diverse Kingdom callings for the whole mission of God in the whole of life. Before his current role Nick worked in discipleship and ministry development for the Diocese of Southwark and prior to that spent 25 years in youth work and ministry, including being Director of the Institute for Children Youth and Mission and editor of the Journal of Youth and Theology. Nick’s research interests lie in the use of ethnographic, qualitative and action research methodologies to better understand faith formation & Christian identity in a secular age, missional engagement in social vocations and how participation in Christian practices impact our being in the world. Originally from Yorkshire, Nick now lives in South London.
Christopher Southgate is Professor of Christian Theodicy at the University of Exeter, as well as a much-published poet.
Christopher’s current research interests include the problem of suffering, especially in the non-human world, Christian theology’s contribution to addressing the climate crisis, the problem of understanding God’s action in the world, especially in the light of Covid, and the challenge to Christian ministry of sudden tragic events. He also continues to explore the poetry of T.S. Eliot and R.S. Thomas.
Nicola Slee is Professor of Feminist Practical Theology at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Until recently, she was Director of Research at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, and continues to supervise a dozen PhD students at Queen’s/VU, while dropping her larger role and resuming a freelance portfolio of writing, speaking, spiritual direction and leading retreats. She has published widely in the fields of feminist and practical theology, prayer and spirituality and poetics, and is well known as an international scholar and practitioner in these fields.
Her most recent publications are Abba Amma: Improvisations on the Lord’s Prayer (Canterbury Press, 2022) and Fragments for Fractured Times: What Feminist Practical Theology Brings to the Table (SCM, 2020), and she has also contributed to From the Shores of Silence: Conversations in Feminist Practical Theology, edited by Ashley Cocksworth, Rachel Starr and Stephen Burns (SCM, 2023). She is currently hatching a number of different writing projects and wondering which one is going to surface first!
Férdia J. Stone-Davis is Director of Research at the Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge, an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, and a Postdoctoral Bye Fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.
Dr Stone-Davis is the Chair of the Royal Music Association Music and Philosophy Study Group. From January 2022, Férdia will be the principal researcher on a three-year project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), “The Epistemic Power of Music: On the Idea and History of Artistic Research through Music”, to be conducted with the Institute of Music Aesthetics, and the Doctoral School for Artistic Research, at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz.
She received a BA in Theology and Religious Studies, an MPhil in Philosophy of Religion and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She also has an MMus in Early Music Performance Studies from Trinity College of Music, London. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Musicology at the University of Göttingen, Germany between 2012 and 2015 and has taught in departments of music, philosophy and theology at the University of Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of East Anglia, and King’s College, London. Her research interests centre upon music and its relation to philosophical and theological anthropology, ethics, epistemology and worldmaking.
Her publications are listed on her personal website
Email: director@gohealth.org.uk
Tel: 07398 164477
Twitter: @GillianStraine
The Revd Dr Gillian Straine is the Director of the Guild of Health and St Raphael, an ecumenical charity dedicated to the healing ministry. An Anglican priest and physicist, her books include Introducing Science and Religion (SPCK, 2014) and Cancer: A Pilgrim Companion (SPCK, 2017). She is trustee of the Christian Evidence Society, The Science and Religion forum and elected fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.
The Revd Angela Tilby is Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, and a Canon of Honour at Portsmouth Cathedral. She is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, and teaches and lectures on church history and theology.
Visiting Scholar in Theology, Imagination and Culture
The Revd Dr Carlton Turner, a native of the Bahamas and an Anglican priest, is a Caribbean Contextual and Practical theologian working as a tutor in Contextual Theology and Mission Studies at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham.
Dr Turner writes and researches on themes around decolonisation, legacies of enslavement, theologies of oppression, and theological hermeneutics as they have shaped and continue to shape postcolonial and post-imperial contexts.
Dr Turner is driven by the need for interdisciplinary methods within theology to better serve the transformation of real-world contexts. He is the author of Overcoming Self-Negation: The Church and Junkanoo in Contemporary Bahamian Society (Wipf & Stock, 2020), and is currently completing an SCM Textbook on Caribbean Contextual Theology.
Alison Webster is a freelance practical and mission theologian who offers spiritual accompaniment. She leads the Exploring Theology programme at Sarum. An experienced group and workshop facilitator, Alison has a particular passion for using the arts to encourage personal and social transformation. She has worked on issues of social justice, community organising and social action within an Anglican context for many years, and is of Methodist heritage. Her writing and reflections have focused on issues of sexuality, wellbeing, and identity. She has published four books, most recently, ‘Found Out: Transgressive Faith and Sexuality’ (DLT 2017), along with numerous articles and resource books. She is founder (and now emeritus) editor of two international journals, ‘Theology and Sexuality’, and ‘Political Theology’.
Linda joined the College in 2022.
E lallen@sarum.ac.uk
T 01722 424839
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Dave is a trained carpenter/joiner. After a number of years in the construction industry, Dave joined Sarum College in 2004 and is involved in a variety of the college’s building works.
Beth, who joined Sarum in 2022, administers the short course programme.
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E hduffy@sarum.ac.uk
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E library@sarum.ac.uk
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Jayne (MA DipLib) studied at St Andrews University and University College London. Before coming to Sarum, she worked in a variety of business and technical libraries and then went to sea, as librarian onboard the QE2 and QM2.
E Gary Gifford
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Gary joined Sarum College in 2020. Previously he was Operations Manager for BMI Healthcare and Catering and Administration Manager with the British Army.
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E Mark Manterfield
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Mark’s background includes studying for a degree in Hotel and Catering Administration; spending a year as a church volunteer in Manchester; working in various management roles in the hotel industry; and spending a period of time living as a resident at Hilfield Friary, Dorset. Mark joined Sarum College in 1997. In 2008 he completed the CIPFA Certificate in Charity Finance and Accountancy and in 2011 he completed an MSc in Charity Accountancy and Financial Management with Distinction through London South Bank University, gaining ‘the best set of MSc marks for some years’. At Sarum his portfolio includes finance, human resources and safeguarding.
E Christine Nielsen-Craig
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Christine worked in public relations and as a journalist before joining Sarum College in 2008. She has a master’s degree in Communication for Development from Ohio University, USA.
E kitchen@sarum.ac.uk
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E kitchen@sarum.ac.uk
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Lucy has been in this role since 2022, and joined the the College in 2018.
E Lucy Smith
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E cwhimpenny@sarum.ac.uk
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Chris administers Winchester-validated postgraduate study programmes. She joined Sarum College in 2019.
E catering@sarum.ac.uk
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Tamy joined Sarum College in 2006. She and her husband run Lee’s Fish & Chips in Salisbury.
E ayoung@sarum.ac.uk
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Annette Young has a BA (Hons) in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Winchester. She joined the staff of STETS in 2008 transferring to Sarum College in February 2015. Annette manages the Principal’s diary and oversees the College’s ministerial training programmes.
