The Religion and Theology program supports constructive work in the study of religion that incorporates a wide range of methodologies.

The program includes scholarship in religious studies that draws upon religious thought in order to address issues of widespread concern. Work in this area combines detailed attention to particular religious traditions with theoretical resources from the fields of ethics, politics, cultural studies, social theory, and philosophy.

The program also includes scholarship in theology, which addresses questions within Christian thought concerning belief in the divine and the nature of humanity. Theology at the IRCI is open to diverse approaches, and it has a particular strength in the Catholic intellectual tradition, which proceeds in the conviction that faith and reason are not at odds. If you are interested in pursuing graduate studies within the Religion and Theology program, please contact Dr. Philip McCosker.


Our research team

Our global and multidisciplinary team of scholars are experts in the fields of religion, theology, history, and literature.

Meet our team

Study with us

Find out about our Master of Philosophy (MPhil) or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Theology and Religious Studies.

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Current projects

Hermeneutics and Transcendence: Toward a Synthesis

This project forms part of the Widening Horizons in Philosophical Theology initiative, generously funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. This project aims to glean insights from the continental tradition of philosophy, with a view toward enriching theological thought.

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Spiritual Understanding in a Secular Age

With funding from the Templeton Religion Trust, this project explores the possibility that secular art can encourage spiritual understanding.

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Theologies of Catholicity

Drawing on original and classic sources, this international project explores understandings of catholicity, taking as its starting point the ressourcement theologians of the early and mid-twentieth century.

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Redeeming autonomy: Agency, vulnerability, and relationality

The purpose of the ‘Redeeming Autonomy’ programme is to make a strategic intervention in the academic and cultural debate around the concept of ‘autonomy’. ‘Autonomy’ is, like it or not, a central concept in current cultural, political, legal, and ethical debates.

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Past projects

  • Atheism and Christianity: Moving past polemic
    Associate Professor Robyn Horner (ACU), Dr Christiaan Jacobs-Vandegeer (ACU), Dr David Newheiser (ACU), Professor Henning Tegtmeyer (KU Leuven), Professor Denys Turner (Yale/ACU), and Professor Stephan van Erp (KU Leuven).

Other programs

Biblical and early Christian studies

A major focus of research in this program is the extent to which different strands of early Christianity aimed to define themselves in relation to Jewish and Greco-Roman religious, philosophical, rhetorical, social, and cultural heritages.

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Medieval and early modern studies

The purpose of this program is to understand and reframe history through dynamic reinterpretations of the medieval and early modern past and to examine the modern world's self-conscious rejections of religious Byzantine and medieval pasts.

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History of Emotions

ACU’s Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions approaches emotions studies from the perspective of religion, philosophy, history, health humanities and literature from antiquity to today.

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ACU Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry

Mailing address

C/- 115 Victoria Pde
Fitzroy, VIC, 3065.