Revd Dr Sean Doherty, BA, MPhil, DPhil

Principal

A bit about me

I became a Christian when I was about sixteen years old and quite soon after that started to wonder if God was calling me to becoming a vicar. After working for Barclays Bank for a gap year I went to Oxford to study English but changed to theology. I loved it so much that I have been studying (and teaching!) it ever since.

After another gap year working for the Anglican mission agency USPG, I went to Wycliffe Hall in Oxford to train for ordination, where I also started studying for my DPhil in Christian Ethics. I have been passionate about economic justice since I was a teenager and was impacted by liberation theology as an undergraduate. My doctorate looked at how Martin Luther’s Reformation theology made him radically anti-capitalist, and considered what Christians can learn from this about engagement with economics today.

I am married to Gaby, who has been in ministry for many years as a youth minister and is now a curate. As a family we have a long-term calling to live and minister in UPA/social housing estates. We lived opposite Grenfell Tower, and Gaby has written a book about our experience of the fire and its aftermath called Grenfell Hope. I am a member of the General Synod of the Church of England and have also been the Chair of Governors at a Church of England primary school when my children attended it.

I was one of the founders of the charity Living Out, and more recently was a member of the Theology and Ethics Thematic Working Group for the Living in Love and Faith project in the Church of England, for which I wrote papers on the history of the church’s teaching on sexuality, the role of conscience in ethical decision making and church life, and discipleship and holiness within the Anglican tradition. I am passionate about charismatic theology and practice, and detective fiction!

My research interests

My main areas for research and supervision are economic ethics (especially Christian responses to capitalism), sexual ethics, and medical ethics. I am also passionate about charismatic theology and practice, and detective fiction!

I am open to receiving PhD applications.

How to get in touch with me

Email my EA via jo.norman@trinitycollegebristol.ac.uk

Some highlights of my work