Professor David Cheetham BA MA PhD

Department of Theology and Religion
Professor of Philosophical Theology
Co-Director, Birmingham Centre for the Philosophy of Religion

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 415 8335
Email: d.cheetham@bham.ac.uk

View my research portal

Address: ERI Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I am a philosophical theologian who is currently researching a range of topics including the relations between religions, contemporary philosophical theology, and theology and the arts.

Qualifications

BA, MA, PhD

Biography

Following doctoral studies on the work of John Hick, I was a Research Assistant in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. I have held a number of academic positions, including posts in theology and the philosophy of religion at the University of Worcester (1995) and Newman University College (1996-99). In 1999, I was appointed as Lecturer in Theology and Inter-religious Relations at Birmingham University, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007, and Reader in Philosophical Theology in 2014. I was Head of Department of Theology and Religion 2012-15 and then Head of the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion 2016-2020. I was promoted to Professor in 2020.

Teaching

Problems of religious diversity
Paradigms of belief
Contemporary theology
Philosophy of religion

Postgraduate supervision

I am happy to supervise on the following topics:

Theology of religions
Philosophy of religion
Christianity and Asian religions
Theology and the arts
Theology and ministry studies

Find out more - our PhD Theology and Religion page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

I am a philosophical theologian who is currently researching a range of topics including the relations between religions, contemporary philosophical theology, and theology and the arts.

My most recent monograph was entitled Ways of Meeting and the Theology of Religions (Ashgate, 2013), where I attempted to articulate some different theological (and non-theological) spaces for the meeting of religions. Since completing this work, I have been researching more deeply into various aspects that stem from this work: including the theology of ‘representation’, the theologies of ‘work’ in comparison to the theology of religions, theology and the arts (with a special emphasis on music), and theologies of creation. I also have broader research interests in contemporary theology, particularly areas such as public theology and the theology of the secular.

Research groups

Philosophy of Religion

Other activities

I am an ordained minister in the Church of England. I am an active musician. I play piano and keyboards.

Publications

Books

(2020) Creation and Religious Pluralism: A Christian Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 220pp.
(2013 [2016]). Ways of Meeting and the Theology of Religions. London: Routledge, 224pp.
(2013). Understanding Interreligious Relations. Ed. with D. Pratt & D. Thomas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 448pp.
(2011) Intercultural Theology. Ed. with Mark Cartledge. London: SCM Press, 2011), 193pp.
(2011). Interreligious Hermeneutics in Pluralistic Europe. edited with O. Leirvik, U. Winkler and J. Gruber. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 449pp.
(2008). Contemporary Practice and Method in the Philosophy of Religion: New Essays. Ed. with Rolfe King. New York and London: Continuum, 225pp.
(2007). What Makes a Good City? [Edited collection of papers for the Midlands Faiths for the City event held in the Great Hall, University of Birmingham, Sept. 11^th 2007.] 67pp.
(2003). John Hick. Burlington and Aldershot: Ashgate, 189pp.

Articles and Book Chapters

(1994). John Hick, Authentic Relationships and Hell. Sophia, 33/1, March, 33-45.
(1995). Religious Surveying: Commonality Between Religious Traditions. Scottish Journal of Religious Studies. Autumn 1995, 103-116.
(1996). Pulp Fiction, the Love of God and an Authentic World. Modern Believing, 37/3, July, 31-38.
(1997). Evil and Religious Pluralism: The Eschatological Resolution. New Blackfriars, 78/915, May, 1997, 208-218.
(1997). Hell as Potentially Temporal. The Expository Times, 108/9, June, 1997, 260-63.
(1998). Religious Passion and the Pluralist Theology of Religions. New Blackfriars, 79/926, May, 1998, 229-240
(1998). The Bible and Music: A Pedagogical Device. Scripture Bulletin, 28/2, July, 1998, 59-69.
(2000). Postmodern Freedom and Religion. Theology, 103/811, January/February, 8-36.
(2002) [Review Article] ‘G. D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity’ World Faiths Encounter.
(2002). Inter-religious Dialogue and the Sikh Religion. Sardarni Kailash Kaur Memorial Lecture. Patiala: Punjabi University Press. [Re-published in The Sikh Review, Vol. 52/ 2, No. 602, February, 2004].
(2005) Sikhismus: II. Missionswissenschaftlich. In Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Vol.8, Tubingen: Mohr Seibeck.
(2005). The University and Interfaith Education. Studies in Inter-religious Dialogue, 15/1, 16-35.
(2006). The Other: Hindus and Buddhists. Cambridge History of Christianity 1914-2000 Vol.9 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 502-507.
(2006). The Other: Theologies of Religions. Cambridge History of Christianity 1914-2000, Vol.9 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 508-13.
(2006). The Role of Theology and Religion in Public Discourse. In V. Mortensen, ed., Religion and Society: Cross-disciplinary European Perspectives, Aarhus: Univers, 35-47.
(2006). Liberal Pluralism, Radical Orthodoxy and the Right Tone of Voice. Sophia 45/2, October, 81-97.
(2007). The Encounter between faiths and an “Aesthetic Attitude”.’ The Heythrop Journal 68, January, 29-47.
(2007). The Global Ethic: Critique and Contribution of Post-secular Theology. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 18/1, January, 19-32.
(2007). Post-secular Theology. [Translated into Chinese]. In Secularisation and Religionisation in Europe and East Asia: A Comparison, University of Wuhan, China, May, 68-81.
(2008). Editors’ Introduction’ in D. Cheetham and R. King, eds, Contemporary Practice and Method in the Philosophy of Religion, London: Continuum, 2008, pp. 1-15.
(2008). Comparative Philosophy of Religion. In D. Cheetham and R. King, eds, Contemporary Practice and Method in the Philosophy of Religion, London: Continuum, 2008, 101-117.
(2007). Aesthetics and the Meeting of Religions’ [trans. into Chinese]. Bulletin of Theology and Aesthetics, University of Xiangfan, China, July, 46-62.
(2008). John Hick. In I. Markham, (ed.) Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Theologians Vol.2, Oxford: Blackwells, 294-311.
(2008). Inclusivisms. In A. Race, P. Hedges, eds., Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, London: SCM Press, 63-84.
(2008). Inclusivisms – introductory preface. In A. Race, P.Hedges, eds., Christian Approaches to Other Faiths: A Reader, London: SCM Press, 22-32.
(2010). Exploring the Aesthetic “Space” for Interreligious Encounter. Exchange: Journal of Missiological and Ecumenical Research, 39/1, 71-86.
(2010). Scriptural Reasoning: Texts and/or Tents? Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 21/3, 343-56.
(2011). Contextual Theology; Comparative Theology. G.T.Kurian, ed., Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford: WileyBlackwell.
(2011). Introduction. In D. Cheetham & M. Cartledge, eds., Intercultural Theology, London: SCM Press, 1-10.
(2011). Intercultural Theology and Inter-religious Studies. In D. Cheetham & M. Cartledge, eds., Intercultural Theology, London: SCM Press, 43-61.
(2011). Preface. In D. Cheetham, O. Leirvik, U. Winkler, eds., Interreligious Hermeneutics in Pluralistic Europe, Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, vii-x.
(2012). Obituary: John Hick. Religious Studies, 48/3, 2012, 277-79
(2013). Introduction. (with D. Pratt and D. Thomas) in Understanding Inter-religious Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-13.
(2013). Religion and the Religious Other. in Understanding Inter-religious Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 15-36
(2013). The Future of Engagement: Emerging Contexts and Trends. (with D. Pratt and D. Thomas) In Understanding Inter-religious Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 390-401.
(2013). Scriptural Reasoning as a “Classic”: the Aesthetics of Interreligious Politics. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 24/3, July, 1-14.
(2013). Foreward. In S. Torr, A Dramatic Pentecostal/Charismatic Anti-theodicy: Improvising on a Divine Performance of Lament, Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishing, ix-xi
(2015). The Interfaith Landscape and Liturgical Places.In J. Chesworth, J. Hoover et al., eds, The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter, Leiden: Brill, 544-558.
(2016). Hick, John Harwood (1922–2012). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2017 online). Ritualising the Secular: Inter-religious Meetings in the Immanent Frame’ Heythrop Journal, [hard copy May, 2019, 60/3, 383-398]
(2016). Minorities, Migrants and “the Gift”. Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, 26/2, 164-75.
(2017). Jazz and Blues. In C. Partridge, M. Moberg (eds.) The Bloomsbury Companion to Religion and Popular Music, London & New York: Bloomsbury, .286-93.
(2017). Comparative Theology and Philosophical Theology. Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology, 1/1, 55-64.
(2020). Pluralism and Ineffability. Religious Studies, 56/1, 95-110.

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