This multifaceted workstream encompasses a number of collaborative initiatives with partners from a range of institutions. Together they examine the roots and contemporary articulation of political theology as an interdisciplinary framework of analysis, provide opportunities for researchers to gather around key questions in this emerging field, and explore contemporary theopolitical questions of public import.
Among the key strands of this workstream are:
What is Political Theology?
Centre Director Luke Bretherton engaged in a multi-year collaboration and dialogue with the social anthropologist, Valentina Napolitano (University of Toronto), and religious studies and Black studies scholar, Vincent Lloyd (University of Villanova). A series of colloquia and ongoing conversation issued in the co-authored book What is Political Theology? (Columbia University Press, 2026).
We held a book launch at Christ Church, Oxford, in May 2026, and you can read more about the event in DPhil student Matthew Vogel’s blog post.
Political Theologies Conferences
The McDonald Centre serves as one of the co-organisers and co-sponsors of the annual Political Theologies conferences, which take place in the Spring each year. Now looking ahead to its seventh iteration in 2027, the Political Theologies series brings together scholars across theology, law, politics, and the humanities to explore how religious and moral thought shape our shared civic and political life.
The Political Theologies series grew out of the Protestant Political Thought project hosted at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and continues as part of the Landecker Lectureship “Imagining Sacred Lands” at the University of Cambridge, supported by a range of partners from across Europe. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Samuel Tranter currently serves as part of the organising committee.
The 2027 conference will be held at New College, Oxford, from 5-7 April 2027. A call for papers will be published soon.
See below for information about past Political Theologies conferences.
Oxford-Princeton Seminar
The Oxford-Princeton Seminar in Christian Ethics engages in discussions on different aspects of Christianity and Western political thought. In 2025-26 the theme was Christianity and the State: 16th to 20th Century Perspectives. In 2025-26 the Oxford-Princeton Seminar in Christian Ethics also collaborated in organising the June 2026 symposium on Brian Brock's Joining Creation's Praise: A Theological Ethic of Creatureliness (Baker Academic, 2025).
See below for further information about the seminar.
The Public Legitimacy of the Church of England
This project, led by McDonald Centre Senior Fellow Prof Joshua Hordern and originally funded as a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship by TORCH, established a relationship between the McDonald Centre and the Centre for Cultural Witness, directed by Bishop Graham Tomlin and based at Lambeth Palace. The focus was on exploring the public legitimacy of the Church of England: understanding and evaluating the rationale for the standing it has in English and UK public life.
Through research and collaboration, this partnership sought to impact and enhance the Church of England’s thought, policy and public communication, with a focus on the contested legitimacy of its role in government, policy, and public life. Alongside consultations, symposia, and conferences, a significant output of the project is a book of essays entitled A Voice in the Wilderness: Why Should We Listen to the Church of England? edited by Joshua Hordern and Graham Tomlin and published by SCM Press in April 2026.
See below for further information on this project.
