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About

Sarah Coakley has retired from the Norris-Hulse Professorship at Cambridge University, in which role she served from 2007 to 2018. From 2018 she has been an Honorary Professor at the Logos Institute, St Andrews University, and from 2022 an Honorary Professor at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne and Rome). She is an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences. She holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Lund, St Andrews, Toronto (St Michael’s College), and London (Heythrop College).

 

Born in London in 1951, Sarah Coakley was educated at Cambridge (BA/MA, PhD) and Harvard (Th.M) Universities. She held earlier academic positions at Lancaster University (1976-1991), Oriel College, Oxford (1991-93), Harvard Divinity School (1993-2007; Mallinckrodt Professor, 1995-2007), and a visiting Professorship at Princeton University (2003-4). She gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in 2012.

 

Coakley is currently actively engaged in writing the remaining volumes of her systematic theology, and in editing her recent papers in philosophy of religion.

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Image by Cristina Gottardi

Academic Appointments

2025-6 (invited), McDonald Visiting Professor, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

2019- Professorial Fellow, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne/Rome) (from 2022, Honorary Professor); Honorary Professor, University of St Andrews; Honorary Fellow, Oriel College, Oxford; Emeritus Fellow, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge

2007- 2018, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge

2003-4, Eli Lilly Visiting Professor in the Department of Religion and the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University

1993-5, Professor of Christian Theology, The Divinity School, Harvard University; 1995-2007, Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr., Professor of Divinity, Harvard University

1991-3, Tutorial Fellow in Theology and Philosophy of Religion, Oriel College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Theology

Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Lancaster, 1976-90; Senior Lecturer 1990-1

Education

Ph.D., New Hall, Cambridge, 1983 (‘The Limits and Scope of the Christology of Ernst Troeltsch’)

Th.M. with distinction, as Harkness Fellow, Harvard Divinity School, 1975

B.A. in Theology, New Hall, Cambridge. First-class honours in Parts I (1971) and II (1973) of the Cambridge Tripos; M.A. taken, 1983

Recent and Upcoming Lectureships

​Warren W. Waite Lecturer in Religion, Florida Southern College, 2026 (invited)

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Newman Lecture, University College Dublin, 2024

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Brady Theology & Mission Lectures, Northern Theological Seminary, 2023

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Père Marquette Lecturer, Marquette University, 2022

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McCosh Lecturer, Queen’s University, Belfast, 2021

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Schaff Lecturer, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 2020

Notable Publications

The Broken Body: Israel, Christ and Fragmentation (Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2024) (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2)

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The New Asceticism: Sexuality, Gender and the Quest for God (London, Bloomsbury, pbk, 2015)

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God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge, C.U.P., hbk and pbk, 2013) (vol. 1 of a 4-vol. systematic theology)

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Sacrifice Regained: Reconsidering the Rationality of Religious Belief, inaugural lecture as Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity (Cambridge, C.U.P., pbk, 2012)

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​Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender (Oxford, Blackwell, hbk and pbk, 2002) (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1)

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Christ without Absolutes: A Study of the Christology of Ernst Troeltsch (Oxford, O.U.P., hbk, 1988; pbk, 1994)

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