Professor Joshua Hordern

Biography

Joshua Hordern is Professor of Christian Ethics, a Governing Body Fellow of Harris Manchester College and Lecturer in Theology at Jesus College. He is Director of the Oxford Healthcare Values Partnership, co-founder of the Oxford Collaboration on Theology and Artificial Intelligence, PI of Christian Political Thought for British Public Life, a principal investigator for Augustinian Resemblances and Senior Fellow of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life. He is a member of the committee of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics.

For the last decade he has been as a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the Church of England, serving as vice-chair of the Commission until 2027. He is an ordained Church of England minister, based in the Parish of Cowley.

He read Literae Humaniores (Classics) at New College, Oxford before postgraduate study of Theology in Oxford and doctoral work in Edinburgh, supervised by Oliver O’Donovan. After this he was a junior research fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, Associate Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Lecturer at the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge and an elected local authority councillor in Bury St Edmunds before returning to Oxford in 2012.

He warmly welcomes contact from prospective graduate students (MSt/MPhil/DPhil). He is also open to enquiries from postdoctoral researchers interested in collaboration.

Research Area

Christian and Religious Ethics

Research Interests

Christian political theology, healthcare, conscience, loyalty, betrayal, compassion, covenant, the role of affections in ethics, Islamic political thought, artificial intelligence.

My research interests are in three main areas, political theology, healthcare and artificial intelligence.

First, my research draws on the long tradition of Christian political thought in order to illuminate present-day concerns. This work has included exploration on the role of affections in politics (Political Affections, OUP 2013) and on New Conversations in Islamic and Christian Political Thought (co-edited journal issues of The Muslim World and Studies in Christian Ethics 2016).

My current work on political thought focusses on themes of loyalty, betrayal, conscience and covenant, applied to issues of national identity and ecclesial life. Publications include

special issue of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion on integralism (co-edited with Paul Billingham, 2026)
special section of Studies in Christian Ethics on Christianity and liberal political thought, focussed on English Public Theology by Joan Lockwood O’Donovan (co-edited with Eric Gregory, 2026)
A Voice in the Wilderness: Why Should we Listen to the Church of England? (SCM, 2026), a multi-author volume (coedited with Graham Tomlin), exploring the contested rationale for the Church of England’s continuing public standing.

Key projects supporting this work are the Oxford-Princeton Seminar in Christian Ethics, Augustinian Resemblances and Christian Political Thought for British Public Life.

Second, I work in partnership with healthcare researchers, clergy and clinicians exploring the ethos of healthcare and church institutions. Particular foci have included ministry associated trauma, the culture of precision medicine research, medical professionalism, the role of compassion in healthcare organisations and the covenantal significance of health and healthcare to national identity, especially in the recovery from the pandemic. Publications include a monograph, Compassion in Healthcare: Pilgrimage, Practice and Civic Life (OUP, 2020). Coedited collections include

Personalised Medicine: The Promise, The Hype and the Pitfalls (The New Bioethics 2017)
Marketisation, Ethics and Healthcare: Policy, Practice and Moral Formation (Routledge, 2018)
The Politics of Diakonia (Political Theology, 2019)
The heart in medicine, history and culture, (Medical humanities, 2020)
Illuminating the Darker Side of Ageing (Journal of Population Ageing, 2021)
Hamley, I., Hordern, J., and Stroud E. (eds), Wounded Shepherds: Seeking Christ amidst Ministry Associated Trauma (SCM, 2026)
Chan-Stroud E., Hamley I., Hordern J., Middleton K., van der Hart W., Wyatt J., Out of the Depths: A Practical Guide to Ministry in the Most Difficult Seasons (Canterbury Press, 2026).

I direct the Oxford Healthcare Values Partnership which has collaborated closely with cross-disciplinary academic colleagues, ecclesial organisations, the UK Medical Research Council/Cancer UK funded Stratification in Colorectal Cancer Consortium, the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine and a number of patient organisations. I was a member of the Royal College of Physicians Committee for Ethical Issues in Medicine and co-authored the RCP’s report Advancing Medical Professionalism (2018). A fruit of this work is a curriculum for all undergraduate medical students at the University of Oxford, designed by an interdisciplinary team, which was recognised by a Vice Chancellor’s Award for Education in 2025.

Third, I work in the field of Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on how the formation of loves and loyalties is intertwined with developments in this field. I am a co-founder of the Oxford Collaboration on Theology and Artificial Intelligence and have co-led the development of the 2026 Oxford Open Letter and Oath for AI Practitioners.

Support for this research has been generously provided by bodies including the McDonald Agape Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Higher Education Innovation Fund, the Clergy Support Trust and the Wellcome Trust.