One of my main areas of research is the study of Christian origins. I have published widely on the historical Jesus and the earliest Christian communities. I have a particular interest in examining the themes of poverty, health, madness, miracles, exorcisms, myth and ethics in early Christianity and their relationship to ancient popular culture, the neglected everyday world of antiquity.

Although I have written a number of articles in this field (see Publications), my two books in this area might be of interest.

Paul, Poverty and Survival. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1998.

The Madness of King Jesus. London: I. B. Tauris (forthcoming 2015).

In addition to initiating the MPhil pathway in Religion and Conflict in 2020 (click here to see details), I have an active research interest in a number of topics within the subject area, including the intersections between religion and terrorism, and violence and peace in the origins of Christianity.

One of my major areas of interest is religious radicalism in the early modern anglophone world, and, in particular, its perception and interaction with Islam and Muslims.

I have published a book on the subject:

Early Quakers and Islam: Slavery, Apocalyptic and Christian-Muslim Encounters in the Seventeenth Century. Studies on Inter-Religious Relations 59. Uppsala: Swedish Science Press, 2013.

It can be purchased here.

And various articles, such as:

"A Turke turn'd Quaker: conversion from Islam to radical dissent in early modern England." The Seventeenth Century 33 (2018) pre-pub eprint here.

For a full list of my contributions to this field, see my Publications page.

As well as research and teaching on apocalyptic and prophecy in history and culture, I have been involved in establishing a new Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements.

You can see a brief interview explaining the purposes of CenSAMM here.

I have a strong interest in religion in antiquity. More specifically I have focused upon conceptions of magic in the Roman world and the intersection of religion and perceptions of disease and healing.

My most recent publication in this field is:

"Did Magic Matter? The Saliency of Magic in the Early Roman Empire." Journal of Ancient History 1.2 (2013), 1-60.

I have had a longstanding interest in the relationship between religion and anarchism, and in particular, the relationship between Christianity and anarchism. I've started publishing academic papers on this in recent years but my fascination with this subject goes back to my earliest interest in religion, and just before I began to study it in a critical sense, as I was reminded when reading Alexandre Christoyannopoulos' excellent Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2010.

Oh, and the picture is of Dorothy Day - the anarchist one.

Over the years I have been involved with various television and radio programmes, mostly about the origins of Christianity. I have also provided some specialist advice for the 'Messiah' drama TV series on possible apocalyptic motifs to use in its plots and, from time to time, had my research discussed in newspapers and magazines. However, from 2011, I have now begun documenting my various media work. For further information click here.

Diamond open access, where there are no fees charged to the reader or the author of a publication, or whomever provided funding for the original research, is one of the most important developments in the global democratisation of scholarship in the world today, uncoupling it from the powers of the market and professional privilege that render so much research completely inaccessible to most human beings on the planet.

As part of my contribution to this movement, with colleagues in Cambridge and Norway, I am helping to develop a diamond open access press called Mutual Academic. This will freely disseminate works in the critical study of the humanities and social sciences.

In the past, I was very happy to have played a very small part in supporting the Open Library of Humanities in its early years, as one of the members of their initial Advocacy Forum. You can also see some of my initial thoughts on the subject of open access here, from an interview in 2013. As one of those behind the establishment of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM), I also ensured that its major academic output, the ongoing Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CDAMM), an online encyclopedia covering secular and religious expressions of apocalyptic and millenarian thinking throughout history and across cultures, is a diamond open access publication.

Undergraduate Level

I contribute lectures and supervisions for the Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion.

Postgraduate degrees

In addition I also provide supervision for taught and research postgraduate degrees (MPhils, PhDs), primarily for the Faculty of Divinity. I am very happy to hear from potential research students in my areas of expertise. Further information about postgraduate courses can be found here.

I also lead the new MPhil Pathway in Religion and Conflict. You can find details of this award here. Do contact me if you have any questions about this award.