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 ever since attending Soul Survivor as 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, and we have four children. Gaby has been in ministry for many years as a youth minister and is currently training for ordination as well. As a family we have a long-term calling to live and worship 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. In wider life I have been a member of General Synod and the Mission and Public Affairs Council of the Church of England and Chair of Governors at the Church of England primary school which my children attended.

Recently I have been a member of the Theology Thematic Working Group of the Living in Love and Faith project and have written 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.

My research interests

My research interests include economic ethics (especially Christian responses to capitalism), sexual ethics and issues of gender justice, and charismatic theology and practice.

How to get in touch with me

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

Some highlights of my work