David F. Ford

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David Frank Ford (born January 23, 1948) is an Anglican theologian, and the present Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, where he has taught since 1991. He is a Fellow of Selwyn College. His election to the Regius Professorship is notable, as he is the first to hold that position who is not in Anglican orders.

Prior to arriving at Cambridge, he served for 15 years as Lecturer (and later Senior Lecturer) at the University of Birmingham.

For his undergraduate education, he read Classics at the University of Dublin, and Theology at the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of St. John's College. Ford also took his doctorate in Cambridge, under the direction of Donald MacKinnon and Stephen Sykes. The result was the book Barth and God's Story (1985). His graduate education also took him on a one year fellowship to Yale University, where he studied with Hans Frei, and also to Tübingen University where he studied with Eberhard Jüngel, thus completing a series of apprenticeships with some of the most important interpreters of Karl Barth in the late 20th century.

He has written chiefly in the area of Christian theology inspired by postliberal theology and narrative theology. His present interests include the interpretation of scripture in the context of interfaith engagement. He is one of the founders of Scriptural Reasoning and has been extensively involved in generating new modes of engagement for inter-faith relations in the post-9/11 world. Other interests include the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within them, interfaith dialogue, and the relation of faiths to secular cultures, traditions and forces.

He gave the 1998 Scottish Journal of Theology lectures, published as Christian Wisdom in 2007.

[edit] Recent Works

Christian Wisdom. Desiring God and Learning in Love (2007).
The Shape of Theology (2007).
The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning. (ed., with C. C. Pecknold, with chapter ‘An Inter-Faith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning between Jews, Christians and Muslims’) (2006)
The Modern Theologians. An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, 3d ed. (ed., with Rachel Muers) (2005)
Fields of Faith - Theology and Religious Studies for the Twenty-First Century. (ed. with Ben Quash and Janet Martin Soskice.) (2005)
Scripture and Theology: Reading Texts, Seeking Wisdom (ed., with Graham Stanton) (2003)
Jesus: An Oxford Reader (ed., with Michael Higton) (2001)
Theology. A Very Short Introduction (1999)
Self and Salvation: Being Transformed (1999)
Living in Praise - Worshipping and Knowing God (with Daniel W. Hardy (2005)