Postgraduate

RESEARCH SUPERVISORS

LST has a large number of research supervisors covering a wide variety of research subjects.

From LST's own Faculty, the research supervisors include:

William Atkinson, Mark Beaumont, Chris Jack, Conrad Gempf, Jean-Marc Heimerdinger, Tony Lane, Alison Lo, Graham McFarlane, Steve Motyer, Julie Robb, Anna Robbins, Max Turner, Steve Walton and Robert Willoughby.

Associate Research Faculty

Paul Helm BA MA (Oxon)

Paul Helm was Professor of History and Philosophy of Religion at King’s College, London, 1993-2000. Previous to that he was a Reader in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, where he taught for many years. He is now a Teaching Fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, where he was J.I.Packer Professor of Philosophical Theology 2001-5. He also teaches at the Highland Theological College. Among his books are Eternal God (1988), The Providence of God (1993), Belief Policies (1994), and three books on John Calvin: John Calvin’s Ideas (2004), John Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008) and Calvin at the Centre (forthcoming).

Paul is interested in supervising research students in Philosophy of Religion, Systematic Theology and Theology of the Reformation. Paul's interests are in all aspects of philosophical theology and in any Christian theological views that have philosophical implications. In particular, he is currently interested in God's relation to time (with reference to theories of the temporal order) and philosophical aspects of the ideas of John Calvin. He approaches these in an unabashedly analytic mode, and so his intellectual connections and sympathies are more with Reformed Orthodoxy and medievalism than with modern 'continental' philosophy. He has supervised a wide range of theses, and among his current students are those studying Scottish philosophy and theology, the thought of John Calvin, free-will theologies and their implications, and the religious ideas of David Hume.

Andrew Kirk BD (London) BA (Cantab) MPhil (London) AKC (King's College, London) PhD (Nijmegen)

Andrew’s whole working life has been in teaching at a postgraduate level in different forms of adult education. He has wide experience in teaching in a cross-cultural situation, teaching in Spanish for twelve years in Argentina and doing lecture tours in the USA, Africa, Asia, Melanesia and Australasia.

Andrew has taught for 40 years in an academic environment, including 9 years in relation to University of Birmingham programmes. Whilst in Birmingham, he also supervised people for the degrees of MPhil, ThD and PhD.

His most recent teaching responsibilities have been as a visiting lecturer in the MTh mission programme of the Protestant Institute for Mission Studies in Budapest, in the MA in Contextual Missiology programme of the International Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS) in Prague and the MA programme of the Baptist Faculty, University of Bucharest. Andrew has also been involved in advising research students on their projects. He is currently supervising 4 students doing PhD research at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, the International Baptist Theological Seminary (Prague) and the London School of Theology, and 1 student doing a D.Min. through Carey Baptist College in Vancouver.

Andrew is interested in supervising research students doing research in the field of Missiology, in particular issues to do with the Theology of Mission, the Contextualisation of the Gospel, Witness in a Secular Environment, Apologetics, Interreligious matters (especially touching Islam and the West) and Latin American Theology and Mission.

Bishop Michael J Nazir-Ali BA (Karachi) BLitt (Oxon) MLitt (Cantab) ThD (Australian College of Theology, NSW) DD (Lambeth)

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali was the 106th Bishop of Rochester, for 15 years, until 1 September 2009. He is originally from Asia and was the first non-white Diocesan Bishop in the Church of England. He was appointed in 1994. Before that he was the General Secretary of CMS from 1989-1994. He holds both British and Pakistani citizenship and from 1999 was a member of the House of Lords where he was active in a number of areas of national and international concern. He has both a Christian and a Muslim family background and is now President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Development (OXTRAD).

Michael has been a visiting lecturer in a number of universities and colleges in the UK, Canada, the USA and Australia. He has travelled widely in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America.

He is the author of ten books and of numerous articles on Mission, Ecumenism, the Anglican Communion, and relations with people of other faiths (particularly Islam). In 2005, he was awarded the Paul Harris Fellowship by Rotary International.

Michael is interested in the following areas of research: Mission and Dialogue, Islam: history, Christian-Muslim Relations, Sufism, Shari'a, Anglican Communition, Ecumenicalism especially Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue and United churches.

Associate Research Fellows

Dr Graham Cheesman BD (London) MPhil (CNAA) PhD (QUB)

Graham was, until recently, the Director of the Centre for Theological Education in Belfast, before that, the Principal of a Bible College, a missionary and a pastor. He is a staff worker in Europe for the European Evangelical Accrediting Association and has acted as lecturer and consultant in theological education in various parts of the world. He has published three books and a number of articles and is editor of one journal and consulting editor of another, in the subject of theological education.

Graham is interested in supervising PhD and other post-graduate students in the area of theological education. He has supervised students in such areas as concepts in theological education, theological education and distance learning, training of missionaries, church and seminary relations, women in theological education and contextualisation of theological education. He has special knowledge of the European and African situations but has supervised doctoral students from Europe, Africa, North America, India and the Far East. He greatly enjoys supervising studies of a local situation in theological education, bring to bear on it ideas of good practice and good thinking in the subject.

Dr Peter Mead BA (UWE Bristol) MDiv MA (Multnomah Biblical Seminary) DMin (Gordon-Conwell)

Peter serves as an International Minister with Operation Mobilisation. This role allows him to teach in several Bible colleges and seminaries around the world, at missions’ events and in local churches. Peter is also a facilitator with Langham Preaching. After completing his undergraduate study in England, he travelled to the USA where he received the Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Biblical Studies degrees from Multnomah Biblical Seminary. He went on to receive the Doctor of Ministry degree in homiletics from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where Haddon Robinson was his mentor.

Peter is interested in supervising MTh research students in homiletics. He is especially interested in expository approaches to preaching, the role of preaching in spiritual formation, the interaction of preaching with hermeneutics and preaching the biblical genres. Interests also include cross-cultural homiletics, contemporary preaching, creative preaching, theology of preaching and studies of preaching in the Bible (especially Hebrews as sermon, and the speeches in Acts, as well as the preaching of the OT prophets and Jesus).

Dr Sean Oliver-Dee BA PGCE (London) MTh (Brunel) PhD (Middlesex)

Sean completed his PhD in British engagement in issues of Islamic governance in the Summer 2008 at LST. Since then he has worked freelance, writing papers for apolitical think-tank and NGO's. He delivered the LST level 3 Islam in the Modern World course in 2007/8 and continues to take seminars and lectures on an occasional basis at the School.

In addition to his work at LST, Sean is also Associate Researcher for the Anglican Representative to the European Union. He is a regular consultant for government on identity issues and has written several papers for NGO’s and think-tanks and his PhD was published by Rowman and Littlefield in August 2009.

Sean is interested in supervising research students in the field of Islamic identity and authority issues. This could focus on the theology of authority and/or political theory. It could also focus on modern salafist philosophy, both in India and in the Middle East. Sean's own research has examined Western governmental engagement with such Islamic governance as well as examining questions of citizenship and identity for both Christians and Muslims.

Rev Dr Keith Small BA (Western Michigan University) ThM (Dallas Theological Seminary) PhD (Brunel)

His PhD is in Islamics through London School of Theology. Dr Small has taught undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Britain and internationally concerning Islamics and Christian ministries to Muslims. In addition to his academic credentials he has almost twenty years of ministry experience to Muslims in the UK. Keith is a visiting Lecturer and Associate Research Fellow at LST.

Keith is interested in supervising research students in Qur'anic textual criticism, comparative textual criticism between the New Testament and the Qur'an, comparative topics concerning the Bible and the Qur'an, and areas of comparative Islamic and Christian theology.

Dr Chris Wigram BA MA (CNAA) PhD (The Netherlands)

Chris has taught both English and Religious Education at Secondary level, and worked for Operation Mobilisation, both in the UK and in the Philippines. Up until 2008, Chris was OMF International’s UK Director. He is now the International Director for European Christian Mission International (ECMI). Chris has been a visiting lecturer in Malaysia and both a member and chair of Global Connections Board. He has authored many articles for OMF’s East Asia’s Billions and Mission News magazine as well as ECMI’s internal magazine.

Chris is interested in Mission Studies especially the interface between the use of the Bible and Mission, how influential the Bible has actually been in the practice of mission. The Hermeneutics of mission, how different parts of the world read the Bible, how these challenge western theology and the implications of this for Christianity worldwide.

Click here to read about other Associate Research Fellows.