Dr Samuel Tranter
Sam joined the Centre in September 2025 as McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Christian Ethics and Public Life. At present his major focus is on developing faithful and fruitful theological responses to the moral, social, and political issues raised by emerging technologies (‘AI’, broadly construed). You can find out more about this McDonald Centre workstream here: Political Theologies, Emerging Technologies, and the Common Life. Sam was invited to the launch of Pope Leo's encyclical Magnifica humanitas in May 2026 and writes and speaks in both academic and public contexts about theology and technology.
Before Oxford, Sam 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. Sam enjoys teaching, and received a PG Cert in Academic Practice while at Durham, leading to Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. He is also strongly committed to postgraduate supervision and has supervised a number of doctoral projects to completion, with his students serving in a range of higher education and ministry contexts across the world.
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 as an editor of the book series T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics and on the editorial board for the Grove Books Doctrine series. His studies were undertaken at the universities of Aberdeen (BD, MTh) and Durham (PhD), where he remains an Honorary Research Fellow.
He is currently researching and writing a book on the moral life in a time of AI tentatively entitled The Labour of Love. Alongside this, Sam has recently written a chapter on 'Democracy and the Political Theology of AI' (with Luke Bretherton, forthcoming in the T&T Clark Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Religion, and Ethics), and journal articles on 'Prophecy and Prediction in a Technological Age' and 'To build or to join? Technology, agency, and grace in the shadow of Babel'.
Sam’s earlier 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). Sam has also written for The Times, The Living Church, the Church Times, and Seen&Unseen. A number of his sermons have been published in The Expository Times.
