Durham Conference September 2024 (update: timetable published)

Ecclesiology and Ethnography Conference 2024

This is the annual conference for the network bringing together scholars working on ethnographic approaches to theology and the study of religion. It is is a wide ranging conference, and part of the joy is discovering a diversity of specialisms and learning. Past papers have included ethnography, anthropology, systematic theology, ecclesiology, practical theology and social science approaches. Attendees range from senior scholars to local ministers and this is an excellent place to present as a post graduate or early career researcher, or as a pastor/scholar in ministry. Learning is generously shared and critiques are supportive. We encourage single and multi-authored papers.

Conference Timetable

The Conference is run in association with The Department of Theology and Religion and St John’s College, Durham University and is based in St John’s College, in the centre of historic Durham. Our meals and accommodation will also be within the college. A limited number of en-suite rooms are available, allocated on a first come, first served basis. St John’s College is about a fifteen minute walk from Durham Rail Station. From Newcastle airport you can ride the Metro to Newcastle Central Station, where you can find frequent trains to Durham. Otherwise, you can book a car with Airport Express to take you from the airport directly to St John’s College.

The Durham Conference is particularly friendly which is helped by the conversations in the college bar, and folk music night on the Tuesday. Bring your instruments and join in!

Timetable of the Durham Conference 2024

(latest update: September 5, 2024)

Tuesday 10th September

11.30 am: Arrivals, Tea and Coffee  

1.00 pm: Lunch 

2.00 pm: Plenary Session (55 Minute Papers) Lectur­e Room

Chair: Pete, Welcome by Simon Oliver

• Jolyon P. Mitchell // Passion Play: The Mystery Resurgence of Religious Drama
• Sabrina Müller // Religious Experience and Its Transformational Power

4.00 pm: Tea 

4.30 pm: Track Sessions (45 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Lynne Taylor and Jessica Bent // My God! I want to be like you! Empirical analysis of identity and authenticity in recently baptised adults
• Stephen Roberts and Hannah Buckley // Sounding the depths: Reflections on playlist as pilgrimage through collaborative autoethnographic musicking

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Helen Cameron and Jane Day // Project Violet: What has made it participatory research and theological all the way through?
• Stefanie Conradt // The Reflecting Together Project: Loneliness and isolation experienced by older people in South Tyneside: Christian responses from the pastoral to the prophetic

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• Nina Kurlberg // Safety, Control and Absolute Power: A Survivor’s Perspective on Justice within Organisational Responses to Church-Based Abuse
• Dieter de Bruin // The Ethnography of Ascent

6.00 pm: Evening Meal

7.00 pm: Seminar Session (30 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Nina Haglund // The Face of the Church – Employees within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland as reflectors of ecclesiological space creation
• Alex Booer // ‘The Fifth Voice’ – Including the Excluded in the ‘Four Voices of Theology’
• Andreas Bernberg // Theopolitical space-making

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Duurt Vonck // How to perform empirical-ecclesiological research on change with liminality as a hermeneutic key and pastoral method.
• Thomas Gudbergsen // Creation, theologically understood, as inspiration for pastoral care – A theological and practical showcase
• Andreas Bjørntvedt // Fluctuations of faith & the quest for community

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• Harry Gibbins // To Interview or Not to Interview: Doing Qualitative Research with Autistic Participants
• Paula Duncan // “I can’t do this”: Revising my Methodology for Safer Research
• Chanil Lee // The alternative to the prosperity gospel preaching

8.30 pm: A Bluegrass Jam, College pub is open

Wednesday 11th September

8.00 am: Breakfast

9.00 am: Track Sessions (45 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Jennifer Riley // Dementia’s liminality: theological, ecclesiological and research implications
• Gael Pardoen // Living Catholicism in Queer Spaces… Catching up with reality

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Marten van der Meulen // Studying the Kingdom of God and the renewal of the church
• James Butler // Revaluating intentionality in discipleship: a reconfiguring of agency in the discipleship conversation through careful attention to how faith changes in the ‘edgy spaces’ of church and society.

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• Knut Tveitereid // The natural frequency of the congregation: How resonance validates ethnography in ecclesiology
• Victoria Bojonca // Role of faith in organizational change: a case study of TCM’s development. From church planting to leadership formation.

10.30 am: Coffee

11.00 am: Track Sessions (45 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Susanna Snyder Struggling to Hope – Designing an Intuitive Inquiry Research Project about (Theological) Hope on the Ground
• Melody Escobar // “For they gave me respite from labor and rested me”:
  Exploring the Mutual Impact of Respite Care

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Ruth Dowson and Gavin Mart // Applying the eventization of faith concept: engaging churches in strategic planning for UK City of Culture Bradford 2025.
• Héctor Varela Rios // Teología en lo vivido: immersion and performance in Latine theology using a church gaming event

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• Andy Wier // Methodological Winging It? Reflections on rigour, relevance, and pragmatism in commissioned research for church institutions
• Amy Levad // Stories of Uprising: A Project with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, 2020

12.30 pm: Lunch

1.30 pm: Plenary Session: TARN Panel (Lecture room)
Developing Theological Action Research: marginalised and intersectional participation, and organisational impacts

• Intersectional and marginalised voices (Jane and Helen, Clare and James)
• Organisations and denominations (Stefanie and Bernadette, Andrew and Marten)
• Discussion

3.30 pm: Tea / Break

4.00 pm: Seminar Session (30 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Andrew Dunlop // “But are they ‘church’?” Unearthing the normativities in an understanding of the ecclesiality of new worshipping communities with a mixed ecology setting: findings from a Theological Action Research project.
• Mike MacKenzie // Intelligibility in ethnographic fieldwork: Using Queer Theory to revisit the feasibility of “genuine surprise” and “found” theologies

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Iain Shaw // Ministers’ Lived Experience of the Reasons for Suffering and Evil
• Jarle Waldemar // Pastoral Care in the Pentecostal Movement: An Empirical Study of Pastoral Care Practices

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• David Gifford // To Cross a Bridgeless Divide: Anglican Lived Experience in parishes with a majority demographic of Ultra Orthodox Judaism.
• Aina Rasendrason // The Malagasy Revival Movement of Ankaramalaza and Substance addiction

5.00 pm: Seminar Session (30 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Rebecca Tyndall // Listening for the I and the Thou: theologically informed Voice Centred Relational Method data analysis
• Andy Symmons // The Journey of Deconstruction – Understanding Christian Deconstruction through the Content of Deconstruction Podcasting
• Maik-Andres Schwarz // The Smart Spiritual Companion. Investigating the Role of Religious Apps

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Berit Weigand // Berg What does it take to develop a church?
• Luke Cozens // Mission Isn’t Everything: A Critique of Mission-Totalising Ecclesiologies
• Andrew Hurrell // Included. An ethnographic study of St James and Emmanuel 10 years into their LGBTQA+ inclusive journey

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• Aaron Pelot // Attitudes toward common prayer: Inculturating prayer book liturgy in Japan
• Kjersten Darling // Shifting models of spiritual formation on Evangelical campuses
• Abigail Cawte // The performance of women instrumentalists in charismatic church worship bands

6.30 pm: Evening Meal

7.00 pm: The College Pub open

Thursday 12th September

8.00 am: Breakfast

9.00 am: Track Session (45 Minute Papers)

Room 1 Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

• Clare Watkins and James Butler // The fetishization of education // formation in today’s churches: a theological action research reflection on why we really should “call no-one teacher”. (Matt 23:8)
• Henna Cundill and Zoe Strong // Power, Theology and Action Research

Room 2 All Churches Room (LRC)

• Ian Terry // : Characteristics of a common good building Church of England church: a case study in a UK southern coastal town.
• Ruth Perrin // Friendship, Faith and Flourishing; An Exploration of Millennial Faith in Northeast England

Room 3 Leech Hall (The College)

• Eileen Campell-Reed // “Holy Cow! This Stuff is Real”: 15 Years of Learning from Ministers
• Christine Dutton // Beachcombing on the Shoreline : Discovering the treasure of widening participation in a growing online Christian Community

10.30 am: Coffee

11.00 am: Plenary Session (55 Minute Papers) Learning Resource Centre (LRC) (Chair: Knut)

• Clementine Nishimwe and Hlulani Mdingi // Mutual Learning between Researcher and Studied Communities as a Method in Liberationist Fieldwork
• Elizabeth Pritchard // Sacramental Justice as Queer Sacramentality

1.00 pm: Lunch

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Conference Organising Group

Prof. Pete Ward, Durham University, NLA University College, Bergen and MF Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo;  Rev Dr Christian Scharen, Interim Pastor in New York City, USA; Dr Knut Tveitereid, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo; Dr Gretchen Schoon-Tanis, Minister in Hamburg, Germany; Dr Jasper Bosman, Theological University Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Conference Advisory Group

Prof. Paul Fiddes, Oxford University, Prof. John Swinton, University of Aberdeen, Dr Tone Kaufman, MF Norwegian School of Theology