Paul Fiddes

The Reverend Professor
Paul Stuart Fiddes
MA, DPhil, DD (Oxon), Hon DD (Bucharest)
Born (1947-04-30) 30 April 1947
Nationality British
Education Drayton Manor Grammar School
Alma mater St Peter's College, Oxford
Regent's Park College, Oxford
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Religion Baptist
Awards Hon DD Bucharest 2004
Hon Fellow St Peter's College, Oxford 2004
Ecumenical Prebendary St Endellion 2012
Hon Ecumenical Canon Christ Church 2012
For the Sake of the Church (Festschrift) (2014)
Within the Love of God (Festschrift) (2014)

Paul Stuart Fiddes (born 30 April 1947)[1] is a British Baptist theologian. He is Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford and was formerly Principal of Regent's Park College and Chairman of the Theology Faculty. He has been described as "one of the leading contemporary Baptist theologians",[2] "one of the leading scholars of theology and literature writing today",[3] "one of Christianity's most distinguished scholars",[4] and "one of the foremost theological thinkers of the modern age".[5] His book The Creative Suffering of God is "considered to be one of the major contributions to theology in the last decades of the 20th century".[6][7][8][9]

Education

Fiddes was educated at Drayton Manor Grammar School.[10] In 1965 he went up to St Peter's College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He quickly changed his course and ended up with a Double First in English Language and Literature and Theology. The relationship between these disciplines has formed a major part of his subsequent scholarship. He then embarked on a doctoral thesis entitled The hiddenness of wisdom in the Old Testament and later Judaism, which he completed in 1976, before spending a year at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen undertaking post-doctoral studies, and attending seminars of Jürgen Moltmann and Eberhard Jüngel.

Meanwhile, Fiddes studied at Regent's Park College (the Baptist Permanent Private Hall at Oxford) for ordination as a minister in the Baptist Union of Great Britain. From 1972-75 he was Junior Research Fellow in Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent's Park, became Fellow and Tutor in Christian Doctrine there in 1975 and from 1979-85 he was additionally Lecturer in Theology at St Peter's.

Career

Fiddes was a member of the Oxford Theology Faculty Board from 1989-2007, serving as Chairman 1996-98, and having been a senior member of the Faculty since 1972. He was appointed Principal of Regent's Park in 1989 and Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford in 2002. In 2007 he resigned the Principalship of Regent's Park and was appointed Principal Emeritus, Professorial Research Fellow, and Director of Research.

In 2004 Fiddes was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Peter's, on which occasion he was described as being "recognised internationally as one of the leading scholars in the fields of theology and literature".[11] Later in that year, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity, the highest that the University confers. In 2002 he was chosen to preach the University Sermon on the Grace of Humility, and in 2005 he was appointed to deliver the Oxford Bampton Lectures, choosing as his topic Seeing the world and knowing God: ancient wisdom and modern doctrine. In 2004 he became an Honorary Doctor of Divinity of the University of Bucharest.[10] He is also a Trustee Fellow of Georgetown College.[12]

Professional activities

Fiddes is a member of the editorial board of Ecclesiology: The Journal for Ministry, Mission and Unity and Ecclesial Practices. He is a consultant editor for Studies in Baptist History and Thought, published by Paternoster Press, and a series editor of New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies (Ashgate). He is General Editor of the Regent's Study Guides series, published jointly by the college and the American publisher Smyth & Helwys.[13]

Fiddes has served as a member of ecumenical study commissions for the British Council of Churches and its successor Churches Together in Britain and Ireland,[14] Chairman of the Doctrine and Worship Committee of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Convenor of the Division for Theology and Education of the European Baptist Federation, Chair of the Baptist Doctrine and Inter-Church Cooperation Study Commission of the Baptist World Alliance. A committed ecumenist, Fiddes was Baptist Chair of the Anglican Communion-Baptist World Alliance International Conversations from 2000 until 2005[15] and has also been, together with the Most Reverend Dr Arthur J. Serratelli, Co-Moderator of the second series of Roman Catholic-Baptist World Alliance International Conversations (Second Series 2006-10).[16][17] He is also an Ecumenical Representative to the General Synod of the Church of England.[18] The Anglican community has honoured him in 2012[19] as an Honorary Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (ex officio a member of the Greater Chapter of the Cathedral)[20] and as the first ever Ecumenical Prebendary of the Collegiate Church of St Endellion.[21] He shares the latter honour with Rowan Williams, whom he "vested in the traditional fur almuce" upon the occasion of his admission and installation as a prebendary.[22]

Lectures

In 2009, Fides delivered the Holley-Hull Lectures at Samford University on the subject Telling the Christian Story in Our World Today (for a full report see Sean Flynt, "Self and God: Elusive Subjects in Modern Literature: Fiddes", Samford University Seasons (Winter 2009), p. 20). In 2009 he delivered the Nordenhaug Lectures at the International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation in Prague on the subject "Post Modernity and Wisdom". These lectures will be prepared for future publication.[23] (Previous Nordenhaug Lecturers include Miroslav Volf, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, I. Howard Marshall, Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Aberdeen, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, Jürgen Moltmann, Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Tübingen.)[24] In 2010 (7–9 July) Fiddes was Main Speaker at the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools/Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies, on "The Future of God", at Trinity College (University of Melbourne). At the same time he also spoke, as a keynote speaker, at the Melbourne College of Divinity Centenary Conference (5–7 July).[18][25] Fiddes was a keynote speaker at "The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life", a conference held jointly between Heythrop College and the Institute of English Studies.[26] Fiddes was also a keynote speaker at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, St Catherine's College, Oxford (23–26 September 2010) on the topic "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice".[27]

Publications

Fiddes has written ten books, and more than 115 articles or book chapters.[18][28] He has edited or co-edited ten books and he has jointly authored four more books. His work is published by some of the world's leading publishers, including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of Wales Press, Mercer University Press, Sheffield Academic Press, Blackwell, Ashgate, Springer, Liturgical Press, Paternoster, Eerdmans, SPCK, SCM, DLT, and Marshall Pickering.

One of Fiddes's most important works, Past Event and Present Salvation: the Christian Idea of Atonement, was recently studied in Eamonn Mulcahy in The Cause of Our Salvation: Soteriological Causality According to Some Modern British Theologians, 1988-98 alongside works by Colin Gunton, Vernon White, and John McIntyre.

Fiddes has also been honoured with two Festschriften:

For a full list of publications, see Fiddes's page at Regent's Park College: http://www.rpc.ox.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=181

As sole author

Books

Selected Chapters

Encyclopaedia, handbook, and companion articles

Selected Journal articles

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Fiddes has published around a further seventy articles which are not yet included in this list.[18][28]

Book reviews

As joint author

Books

Chapter

As sole editor

As joint editor

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ "Birthday's today". The Telegraph. 30 April 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2014. the Rev Prof Paul Fiddes, Professorial Research Fellow, Regent's Park College, Oxford, 65
  2. ↑ Jeff B. Pool, PhD, Special Assistant to the President, Director of Baptist Studies, and Professor of Theology, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, "The Baptist Library: Notes of books, past and present, by and about Baptists", The Baptist Studies Bulletin vol. 1 no. 5 (May 2002)
  3. ↑ "Scholars at Baylor Symposium to Examine Religion's Fate in Modern Times", Baylor University (28 September 2009). Accessed 3 March 2010.
  4. ↑ Paul Fiddes, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Local Radio, Sunday Nights (11 July 2010). Accessed 29 March 2011.
  5. ↑ The Revd Dr Robert Ellis, quoted in Andy Goodliff, 'In honour of Paul Fiddes', The Baptist Times (26 November 2014).
  6. ↑ Brookwood Baptist Church Sunday 6 September 2009. Accessed 2 March 2010
  7. ↑ Brookwood Baptist Church Sunday 13 September 2009. Accessed 2 March 2010
  8. ↑ "Theologian Paul Fiddes to Present Annual Holley-Hull Lectures", Samford News (20 August 2009). Accessed 2 March 2010
  9. ↑ Biographical sketch on Global Baptist Peace Conference website. Accessed 2 March 2010
  10. 1 2 "FIDDES, Rev. Prof. Paul Stuart", Who's Who 2008, A & C Black, 2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 accessed 27 March 2008
  11. ↑ "St Peter's College, Oxford, Old Members' Newsletter" (PDF). St Peter's College, Oxford. Spring 2004. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-08-21. Retrieved 2006-08-09.
  12. ↑ Georgetown College Trustees
  13. ↑ Regent's Study Guides
  14. ↑ Eamonn Mulcahy, The Cause of Our Salvation: Soteriological Causality according to some Modern British Theologians, 1988-98 (Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia 140, Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2007), p. 117.
  15. ↑ "Work with the Baptists" Episcopal News Service 24 June 2005, accessed 9 August 2009
  16. ↑ Research Assessment Exercise 2008
  17. ↑ Pro Unione
  18. 1 2 3 4 Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools/Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies Conference 2010. Accessed 29 June 2010.
  19. ↑ 'First ever Lay and Ecumenical Canons', Christ Church website.
  20. ↑ Greater Chapter, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (Updated: Monday 19th January 2015 20:53).
  21. ↑ 'Three New Prebendaries', The Coracle: News from the Diocese of Truro (December 2012), p. 7.
  22. ↑ 'New St Endellion Prebends installed' (31 January 2014).
  23. ↑ International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation: News 2009
  24. ↑ Nordenhaug Lectures
  25. ↑ Melbourne College of Divinity Conference. Accessed 29 June 2010.
  26. ↑ The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life. Page updated 29 June 2010. Accessed 29 June 2010.
  27. ↑ Program: 2010 ISRLC Conference (Oxford, 23-26 Sep. Updated 15 June 2010. Accessed 29 June 2010.
  28. 1 2 Regent's Park College website. Accessed 29 June 2010.
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