Projects and Research
Current Projects
- Christian-Muslim Economic Dialogue
- Religion, Happiness and Well-Being
- Urban Life and Faith
- Global Network for Public Theology
1. Christian-Muslim Economic Dialogue
Throughout 2005-06, a group of Christian and Muslim theologians, businesspeople and economists met to consider the relationship between faith, ethics and economics. Download their report, 'Faiths and Finance' here.
A later conference, held at St. Deiniol's conference centre in North Wales, produced the book edited by John Atherton and Hannah Skinner, "Through The Eye of A Needle" (Epworth Press, 2007).
2. Religion, Happiness and Well-Being
MCPT has won a research grant of £23,492 over two years from October 2007 for the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society programme to fund a "collaboration research network" examining the connection between religion, well-being and happiness. To download a summary of the project (pdf file), please click here.
3. Urban Life and Faith
Elaine Graham and Stephen Lowe of MCPT were members of the recent churches' Commission on Urban Life and Faith, established to review the state of our cities and towns twenty years after Faith in the City. MCPT is a founder member of the Global Network for Public Theology, comprising similar research centres for action-research in aspects of theology and public issues. Participant centres are based in South Africa, Australia, North and South America, UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.
MCPT commissioned some original research for CULF, which has been archived into the "here website, funded by the Church Urban Fund and compiled by Greg Smith. CIT contains a range of study and research resources which explore the ways in which faith-based organizations have responded to economic and demographic changes in their local neighbourhoods.
CULF's report, Faithful Cities was published in May 2006. download a PDF copy of the full report here.
Download the Core Cities Theological Network publication 'Cities of Culture' 2007 here.
Download Elaine Graham's 2005 Montgomery lecture here.
Bishop for Urban Life and Faith
In November 2006 Stephen Lowe was appointed as Bishop for Urban Life and Faith for the Church of England, with special responsibility to take the work of CULF further. MCPT will be holding a series of seminars in 2007 to assist in his follow-up work.
A new seminar series for 2009 will continue MCPT's emphasis on bringing together researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to share insights on the future and well-being of our cities and towns. For details of the seminar series, click here
4. Global Network for Public Theology
As part of the Global Network, MCPT is actively involved with its new journal, International Journal of Public Theology, published by BRILL.