Research:
This is an ethnographic study that argues that the Emerging Church is a milieu that organises on the basis of the sacralisation of a specific form of inclusivity, born out of frustrations with Christianity. It is paradoxically neither and both Christian and New Age/Self-religion. It is Christian insofar as it derives from Christianity, some of its participants identify as Christian, and it continues to engage with – however criticised by – the Christian tradition. It is Self-religion in that some of its participants uphold the ‘ethic of self-spirituality’, and supports, if not socialises, the doctrine of self-authority.
URL: www.francescapo.wordpress.com/cv
Funding:
• James William Squire Bursary
• St Stephen's House Bursary
Other research interests:
• Social scientific study of religion
• Religion in contemporary society
• Religious change and new religious movements (NRMs/'cults')
• Nonreligion, popular religion, lived religion
• Integral studies and the evolution of consciousness
• World/Comparative religion
• Contemporary ecclesiology, ethnographic theology, implicit theology
• Cases: New Age, alternative spirituality, Emerging Church, Fresh Expressions, global appropriations of Christianity and Buddhism
Areas of teaching competence and experience (post-Transfer doctoral students):
- Sociology of religion
- Nature of religion
- Study of religion
- Introduction to Buddhism
- Buddhist ethics
