The theologians in this series work at the intersection of humility – a positive and vibrant recognition of the limits of what we don’t or perhaps can’t know — and discovery, the pursuit of a great, beautiful, animating question.
Judith Wolfe is one of the most sought-after voices in Christian theology today. Born in Vienna, she studied in Jerusalem and Oxford, and taught in Berlin and Oxford before joining the University of St Andrews in 2014, where she serves as Professor of Philosophical Theology. She researches and teaches on eschatology, theological imagination, and the intersection of theology with philosophy and the arts.
Khaled Abou El Fadl is one of the world’s leading authorities on Shari’ah, Islamic law and Islam, and a prominent scholar in the field of human rights. He serves as the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA and is the founding director of the UCLA Islamic Studies Program. His scholarship challenges authoritarian interpretations of Islam and insists on a return to beauty, reason, and mercy as central to the Islamic moral tradition. Abou El Fadl was awarded the University of Oslo Human Rights Award in 2007.
Sarah Coakley is a defining voice in contemporary theology—trained at Cambridge and Harvard, and grounded in patristics, philosophy, and feminist thought. She is known for her integration of systematic theology, contemplative practice, and feminist theory. Coakley retired from the Norris-Hulse Professorship at the University of Cambridge, a position she held from 2007 to 2018.
Dr. Muhammad Suheyl Umar is a leading scholar of Sufism and the intellectual history of the Indian subcontinent. For more than three decades he served as Director of the Iqbal Academy Pakistan, where he oversaw major publications, translations, and international collaborations that shaped the field of Iqbal studies. Through his teaching, writing, and leadership, Dr. Umar has become a vital voice in contemporary Islamic thought, linking the spiritual heritage of Sufism with pressing philosophical and cultural questions of the modern era.
Moshe Idel stands among the most important Jewish scholars of all time. He is widely considered the leading scholar of Jewish mysticism in our era. His writings and his teaching over the past half century have revolutionized our understanding of Jewish religious history. Idel is a Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
Lieven Boeve is a leading Belgian Catholic theologian and Professor of Theology at KU Leuven, where he specializes in fundamental theology and the challenges of faith in contemporary culture. At KU Leuven’s Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, he founded the influential Research Group Theology in a Postmodern Context, which explores how Christian faith can be meaningfully expressed amid shifting philosophical, cultural, and secular paradigms.
Shaykha Amina Teslima al-Jerrahi is the head minister of the Nur Ashki al Jerrahi Sufi Order of Mexico City founded in 1987, following the guidance of her senior, Sheikha Fariha Fatima al Jerrahi. Sheikha Amina has been practicing and studying the Islamic tasawwuf path of tawhid or Oneness for over 40 years under the guidance of various teachers of the Jerrahi Order of Istanbul, Turkey.
Rabbi Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein is one of the world’s leading figures in interreligious dialogue. Since 1997, he has served as the founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, an organization that brings together world religious leaders for shared reflection, learning, and action. His work bridges rigorous theological and academic inquiry with a wide range of practical initiatives aimed at fostering friendship and mutual understanding among faiths.
M. Shawn Copeland is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College and Theologian-in-Residence at Saint Katharine Drexel Parish, Roxbury, Massachusetts. Her work spans the fields of systematic theology, political theology, public theology, Christology, theological anthropology, and African American Catholicism.
Christopher R. Brewer was a theologian, creator, curator, and friend whose life reflected a rare integration of intellectual courage, aesthetic wonder, and moral depth. A former Program Officer at Templeton Religion Trust and Principal Advisor in his final years, Christopher led some of Templeton’s most imaginative initiatives. Holding four degrees in theology, including a Ph.D. in Divinity from the University of St Andrews, Christopher’s scholarly work centered on natural theology, sacramentality, and the arts.
Cemalnur Sargut is among the most influential Sufi teachers in the Muslim world and one of Turkey’s most beloved spiritual guides, known for uniting deep scholarship with a life of radical love.
A senior leader of the Rifa’i Sufi order, she stands out as a rare and powerful female voice in contemporary Islamic spirituality—respected both as a scholar and as a guide to millions.
David Brown is one of the most original and wide-ranging theologians of his generation. An Anglican priest and Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Brown has spent a lifetime exploring the deep interconnections between philosophy, theology, and the arts. He taught at the universities of Oxford, Durham, and St Andrews, where he held the Van Mildert Chair of Divinity and later served as Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture.
William Desmond is an Irish philosopher and poet whose work spans metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion with breadth and lyric intensity. He has held distinguished positions at both the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and Villanova University in the United States, where he served as the David R. Cook Chair in Philosophy.
Tova Hartman is a pioneering scholar, author, and activist whose work bridges religious tradition, gender theory, and community leadership. A professor of gender studies and education, Hartman currently serves as the Dean of Humanities at Ono Academic College in Israel. She is best known internationally as the founder of Shira Hadasha, a groundbreaking Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem that challenges conventional gender roles in Jewish prayer by creating a halakhically committed space for women’s voices in ritual life.
Kordis is an internationally renowned Orthodox iconographer, painter, and scholar, known for revitalizing the tradition of Byzantine iconography with a distinctly contemporary visual language. Born in Greece in 1956, Kordis holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Athens and studied Byzantine art at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston. He served for many years as a professor of iconography and Byzantine art at the University of Athens and has taught and lectured widely around the world.
Benjamin D. Sommer is Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York and one of the most respected contemporary scholars of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish theology. His work bridges rigorous academic study with deep theological reflection, helping modern readers engage Scripture as part of a living, dynamic tradition.
Martin Nguyen is a scholar of Muslim theology and Islamic studies. His scholarship revolves around ethics, constructive theology, Qur’anic studies, and the intersection of race and religion. His most recent book Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the World with Faith and Imagination presents a contemporary theology rooted in the practice of the religious imagination. His present work focuses on theological responses to global mass displacement and modern structural racism.
Ann Loades was one of the most important contributors to contemporary feminist theology. She was Emerita Professor of Divinity at Durham University, and Honorary Professor at the University of St. Andrew’s. She was the first woman (and only second ever person) to be awarded a CBE for ‘services to theology’, the first female President of the Society for the Study of Theology, the first woman to be given a personal chair at Durham, and the first woman to take a seat in the Chapter of Durham Cathedral.
Perry Schmidt-Leukel is one of the world’s leading voices in the development of a pluralist theology of religions. A German theologian and scholar of comparative religion, he serves as Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at the University of Münster. Fluent in German, English, and Chinese academic contexts, Schmidt-Leukel has published more than 30 books.
Susannah Heschel is the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and a Guggenheim Fellow. A leading scholar of 19th–20th century Jewish and Protestant thought, she is known for her work on Jewish-Christian relations, the history of antisemitism, and interfaith theology.
Dr. Garrick V. Allen is Senior Lecturer in the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow. A specialist in New Testament studies, textual criticism, and the history of interpretation, his research explores how the early transmission of biblical texts shaped—and was shaped by—the theological imagination of their readers.
