Graham John Ward (born 25 October 1955) is an English theologian and Anglican priest who was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 2012 to 2024.

Early life Ward was educated at Salford Grammar School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he studied English and French literature, and then at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studied theology while training for ordination at Westcott House.

Career Ward was successively a chaplain and fellow at Exeter College, Oxford, a part-time lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and Dean and Director of Studies for Theology at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in 1990 and a priest of the Church of England in 1991.

He transferred his teaching career to the University of Manchester, where he was Senior Fellow in Religion and Gender (1997–98), then Samuel Ferguson Professor of Contextual Theology and Ethics (1998–2009)."Ward, Rev. Canon Prof. Graham John, (born 25 Oct. 1955), Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, since 2012; Fellow and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, since 2012" in Who's Who online, accessed 21 October 2023

In 2012 he was appointed as Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, in which capacity he is ex officio a member of the College of Canons and the cathedral chapter of Christ Church, Oxford.

Ward has engaged in different fields of theology, especially postmodern theology, and other disciplines such as philosophy, psychoanalysis, gender studies, and queer theory.Graham Ward Religion and Political Thought, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, p. 252. He has written on the theology of language, postmodernism, cultural analysis, and christology. His contemporary research focuses on Christian social ethics, political theory and cultural hermeneutics. He is editor of three book series: Radical Orthodoxy (Routledge), Christian Theology in Context (OUP) and Illuminations: Religion & Theory (Blackwell).

Views

In Cities of God (2000), Ward declared his support for same-sex relationships: ... I am a male, Christian theologian who openly advocates same-sex unions, who has friends dying or living with the fear of AIDS, and a family who lives the shadows, embarrassments and sufferings of a genetic disorder. But each of us moves out from where we are placed and place ourselves, and in doing so understands that we are also elsewhere.Cities of God (Psychology Press, 2000), p. 94

Books and edited volumes

Authored Another Kind of Normal: Ethical Life II (Oxford University Press, 2022), Theology and Religion: Why It Matters (Polity, 2019), Unimaginable: What We Imagine and What We Can't (I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2018) How the Light Gets In: Ethical Life I (Oxford University Press, 2016), Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don't (I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2014), The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens (SCM Press, 2009), Christ and Culture (Blackwell, 2005), Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2004), True Religion (Blackwell, 2002), Cities of God (Routledge, 2000), Theology and Contemporary Critical Theory (Macmillan, 1996, 2nd edition 2000), Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1995),

Edited (Edited, with Michael Hoelzl) Religion and Political Thought (Continuum, 2006), (Edited) The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology (Blackwell, 2004), (Edited) The Certeau Reader (2000), (Edited) Theology and Masculinity (The Journal of Men's Studies, Vol. 7, 1999) (Edited, with John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock) Radical Orthodoxy: a New Theology (Routledge, 1998), (Edited) The Postmodern God: a Theological Reader (Blackwell, 1997),

See also Ward has additionally rejected pantheism, pandeism and process thought. The City of God (Augustine)

References

External links

Interview with Graham Ward Regius Professor of Divinity announcement University of Oxford - Regius Professor of Divinity - Graham Ward