I have received a £174,000 ($230,000) grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to lead a two-year research project entitled “New Directions in Philosophical Theology.”

The aim of the project is to lay the groundwork for a field-shaping programme of research in philosophical theology, defined as a theology resourced by methods and insights from within systematic theology and continental philosophy. It plans to do so (a) by building relationships with theological centres and outstanding individual researchers that already engage continental philosophy constructively for theological advancement, and (b) by formulating a shared understanding of the tasks and questions that should be prioritized over the subsequent c. five years in the field of philosophical theology.

The project will be based here at St Andrews, and draw on the School of Divinity’s rich expertise in systematic theology and continental philosophy, as well as its flourishing work in the neighbouring field of analytic theology.

If you are with an institution that works in the area outlined above, and would like to be involved, please get in touch with me.

The University of St Andrews is now hiring a two-year research fellow to work with this project. Please consider or pass on the advertisement to potential candidates.

A few weeks ago, I gave a Thurber Lecture at the American Church in Paris on Images of New Creation in C.S. Lewis.

Many of C.S. Lewis’s stories – Narnia, Perelandra, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces — are inspired by images of new creation. We will be discussing what makes these images so rich and vibrant, and how they shape C.S. Lewis’s Christian outlook. We will discuss the ideas – both religious and literary – that Lewis draws upon in crafting these images of new creation, and how they can inspire us, too, as we seek to shape our life and our world according to God’s promise.

You can watch the lecture on Vimeo:

Prof. Thomas Pfau (Duke University) and I are convening a small symposium on Religion & Philosophy in Germany, 1918-1933, at Duke University in November. Please see the symposium website for more information. Spaces are very limited, but if you are interested, please email me.