Dr Rhiannon Grant

Dr Rhiannon Grant

Department of Theology and Religion
Honorary Senior Lecturer

Contact details

Address
Centre for Research in Quaker Studies,
Woodbrooke
1046 Bristol Road
Birmingham
B30 6LJ

Rhiannon Grant works on all aspects of modern Quaker thought, including theological understandings, approaches to changing practice, and philosophy. She is interested in issues around theological diversity within Liberal Quakerism, such as nontheism and responses to it, while also maintaining a focus on the theological consistency and coherence found within the tradition. 

Her first book, British Quakers and Religious Language (Brill, 2018), explored the ways in which Quakers in Britain talk about God, with a particular focus on the challenges they face in creating a community which both welcomes diversity and is united around the practice of unprogrammed meeting for worship. She is passionate about presenting research in accessible as well as academic formats, and her first entry in the Quaker Quicks series made this content on Quaker religious language available to a wider public: Telling the Truth about God (Christian Alternative, 2019). 

Her recent projects include an analysis of Liberal Quaker theology which drew heavily on books of discipline/books of faith and practice from around the world (published as Theology From Listening, Brill, 2020, and also to be presented in a more accessible discussion in Hearing the Light, Christian Alternative, 2021). This work has been supported by study leave from Woodbrooke and a grant from the K. Blundell Trust. 

She has also been involved in two snapshot surveys of British Quaker worship during the coronavirus pandemic, and is supervising research projects on topics such as Quakers and animal ethics, philosophers’ attitudes to Quakers, and Anabaptist beliefs about the soul.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Leeds (2014)
  • MA in Gender, Sexuality and Queer Theory, University of Leeds (2010)
  • BA in Philosophy and Theology, University of Nottingham (2009)

Postgraduate supervision

  • Quaker Studies
  • Quaker theology
  • Liberal and progressive religion and theology
  • Atheism and agnosticism, especially within faith communities
  • Multiple religious belonging
  • Interfaith and interreligious
  • Neo-pagan and other alternative religious paths
  • Philosophy of religion
  • Wittgenstein
  • Feminist, queer and trans faith or religion
  • Religious language

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

Research

  • Multiple religious belonging
  • Quaker Studies
  • Religious language
  • Wittgenstein
  • Feminist and queer approaches to religion

Current projects

Philosophical approaches to multiple religious belonging

Publications

Books

  • Forthcoming 2021, Hearing the Light, London: Christian Alternative
  • 2020, Quakers Do What! Why?, London: Christian Alternative
  • 2020, Theology from Listening: Finding the Core of Liberal Quaker Theological Thought, Brill

  • 2019, Telling the Truth about God, Christian Alternative/John Hunt Press
  • 2018, British Quakers and Religious Language, Brill Research Perspectives in Quaker Studies

Refereed journal articles