We investigate religion across diverse cultures, societies and geographical regions. Our collective interrogation of modernity is informed by rigorous textual and ethnographic scholarship, and by broad historical expertise ranging from antiquity to the late-modern period. A strong philosophical and ethical orientation guides much of our research across these areas. We seek to inform public policy and enhance religious literacy.
Our key fields of research include the interfaces between text, context and material culture; arts and the sacred; religious and ethnic diversity; radicalism and radicalisation; life writing; and spirituality and the body.
Theology at King’s has a disciplinary breadth encompassing Systematic, Historical and Philosophical Theology and Biblical Studies, combined with a pioneering emphasis on the arts. We practise a distinctive dialogical style of theology, characterised by creative retrieval of patristic, medieval and early modern traditions. We share a confidence in the transformative power of theological wisdom to repair as well as diagnose the late-modern condition. Our work engages theological traditions with contemporary social issues, not least diversity and social justice.
Our approach to the study of religion is informed by ethnographic methods, and rooted in sustained encounters with communities and policymakers. We engage with contemporary culture and politics to confront the global challenges of religious conflict, social inequality and climate change. TRS anthropologists and sociologists investigate diverse cultures, often exploring philosophical and ethical themes.
TRS researchers are thinking collectively in response to an increasingly virtual international research culture reshaped by Covid-19 and framed by new uncertainties. In this shifting context, we are exploring the sense of place, the meaning of human encounter, the value of local community and the changing roles of religion in public life. We seek to utilise our interdisciplinary expertise – spanning global cultures, the arts, religious practice, biblical literature, ethics and philosophy – to offer distinctive insights into shared experiences of cultural loss and human fragility.