Specific Research Interests
My specialism lies in the history of modern Christianity, with special focus on mission—both international and local, and mission’s relationship to church unity. My PhD, entitled, Overcoming Class and Coloniality in Two Twentieth-Century Reformed Mission Organisations: The Radical Missional Paradigms of the Iona Community and the Council for World Mission, was in the field of World Christianity and was awarded in 2024 from the University of Edinburgh. In addition to my main academic focus of archival research in modern Christianity, I also publish more popular theology in the fields of practical/public/political theology and have several publications and chapters with the publisher SCM Press. I have also published in peer-reviewed journals and academic handbooks on themes such as social class and Christianity, whiteness and auto-ethnographical theology, and ecumenism.
Editorships
I co-edit the International Journal of the Study of the Christian Church (Taylor and Francis) with Professor Stephen Burns (University of Divinity, Melbourne). I am the Book Reviews Editor for the journal Modern Believing (Liverpool University Press).
Biography
Victoria researches and teaches in the area of mission studies, history and theology. Her PhD explored two mission organisations (the Iona Community and the Council for World Mission (previously known as the London Missionary Society), and how both organisations reacted and changed to accommodate both theology and contextual shifts in the 20th Century. Her work therefore explores the intersections of class, poverty, decolonisation, ecumenism and global theology. Victoria also writes and publishes popular, political and liberation theology. She has lectured in Melbourne, Australia, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and preached around the UK. She tutored in both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Stirling, and Westminster College, Cambridge, before joining the faculty at Ripon College Cuddesdon. Victoria also has had roles with the national United Reformed Church and is an active member, alongside ecumenical roles with Churches Together in England, the Council for World Mission and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
Educational Background
PhD thesis, World Christianity, University of Edinburgh. Supervised by Professor Brian Stanley and Professor Emma Wild-Wood
PG Cert. in Peace and Justice, Bethlehem Bible College, Sept 2021-2022
MTh, World Christianity, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, 2018-2019
BA (Hons) 1:1, Religion and Theology, University of Bristol, 2015-2018
Recent Publications
Edited Books
V. A Turner, ed., Young, ‘Woke’, Christian: Listening to the Mission Generation (London: SCM Press, 2022). SCM Press ‘New Titles’ Best Seller 2022.
B. Aldous, H. Kwiyani, P. Rajkumar & V. Turner eds., Lived Mission in 21st Century Britain: Ecumenical and Postcolonial Perspectives (London: SCM Press, 2024).
V. Turner, ed., Awake, Emerging and Connected: Theologies of Justice from the ‘Missing Generation’ (London: SCM Press, 2024).
Peer Reviewed Articles
V. A. Turner, ‘Interrogating Whiteness Through the Lens of Class in Britain: Empire, Entitlement and Exceptionalism,’ Practical Theology (Vol.15, No.1-2, 2022) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1756073X.2021.2023946.
V. A. Turner, ‘Non-Committed Consumers or Theologically Engaged Ecumenists? Thinking Differently About Church Membership for Young People,’ Journal of Youth and Theology https://brill.com/view/journals/jyt/aop/article-10.1163-24055093-bja1004...
V. A. Turner, ‘Baron George MacLeod of Fuinary: Lived Faith, Scottish Identity, and Working-Class Culture during World War One,’ Scottish Archives (2023).
V.A Turner & W. Gibson, ‘Evaluating the Relationship of the Iona Community to the Ecumenical Movement- 1938-1980,’ Theology in Scotland, 30 (2), November 2023, 36-50.
V. A. Turner, ‘Transformative Ecumenism as Reverting, Re-Routing, and Re-Balancing the Ecumenical Movement,’ Reformed World (Vol.69, 2, 2021). http://wcrc.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/ReformedWorld-69-2.pdf.
Book Chapters
V. A. Turner, ‘'Whose Peacebuilding? : Challenging the Worship of Hero or Appropriation of Victimhood,’ in Jude Lal Fernando and Santiago Slabodsky eds., Economy, Peacebuilding and Religion (Bloomsbury, forthcoming, 2025).
V. A. Turner, ‘A Happy Ecumenical Legacy for the London Missionary Society? Exposing the Coloniality Between Churches Engaged in Mission,’ in A. Reddie, C. Troupe, P. Cruchley and M. Jagessar ed., Deconstructing Whiteness, Empire and Mission (SCM Press, 2023).
V. A. Turner ‘Poverty in Working Classes and Christian Social Movements in Britain’ in D. Hiebert ed., Routledge International Handbook of Sociology and Christianity (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023).
V. A. Turner, ‘Learning from Community: Lessons of Class Solidarity from the Iona Community,’ in L. Larner ed., Confounding the Mighty: Stories of Church, Social Class, and Solidarity (London: SCM Press, 2023).
V. A. Turner, ‘Can We Imagine Again?’ in C. Baker & R. Haeker ed., Re-Envisioning the British State in a Time of Crisis: A Critical Revisiting of the Balliol Connection of Temple, Tawney & Beveridge for the 21st Century (Temple Book, 2023), https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/temple-books/
