Dr Samuel Tranter

Sam is McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Christian Ethics and Public Life. He holds degrees from the University of Aberdeen (BD, MTh) and Durham University (PhD), and has taught theology and ethics in theological colleges and universities across the UK and, for a year, in Southeast Asia. Most recently, he was Director of Postgraduate Studies and then Academic Dean at Cranmer Hall, St John’s College, Durham University, and an Honorary Research Fellow of Durham’s Department of Theology and Religion.

Sam is a member of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics (formerly serving on the committee) and the Society for the Study of Theology, and serves on the editorial board for the Grove Books Doctrine series. He has recently completed a PG Cert in Academic Practice, leading to Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

Sam’s more recent publications include articles on sin and agency (Studies in Christian Ethics), on the complicated connections between Christian hope and ecological responsibility (Scottish Journal of Theology), and on how we might reflect theologically on the good, the bad, and the ugly (Practical Theology). His PhD was published in 2020 as Oliver O’Donovan’s Moral Theology (T&T Clark). 

At present Sam’s major focus is on developing faithful and fruitful theological responses to the moral, social, and political issues raised by emerging technologies (‘AI’, broadly construed). This involves a number of big picture questions, among them:
 

• • How can we situate recent developments in relation to the theology and critical theory of technology?
  • What critiques are being voiced about the actually existing political economy AI has emerged within?
  • In what ways should we trouble and contextualise technocratic claims of progress and their philosophies of history? 
  • How might we re-envision the rich theological anthropology required for addressing these issues?

It also involves taking up, creatively, the invitation AI’s advent presents for us to reason together about particular areas of personal and communal life, including work, care, and politics. 
 

• • What fundamental commitments do - or should - we carry about these things, and what might Christian ethics say about them?
  • How can we advocate for the use of AI that supports and furthers humane wisdom, quality of relationship, just society, and ecological flourishing?
  • What kinds of practices and movements can we witness to that seek to harness, mitigate, resist, or retool AI in pursuit of these good ends?