Luke Bretherton

Luke Bretherton was born and grew up in London and has lived in the US for the past decade. His experiences working with a variety of faith-based NGOs around the world and involvement in political initiatives raised questions that led him to become an academic. He is the Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral & Political Theology and a Senior Fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Before joining Duke, he taught at King's College London, where he was Reader in Theology & Politics and Convener of the Faith & Public Policy Forum. Author of a number of books and numerous academic articles, he also writes in the media (including The Guardian, The Times, The Washington Post, and ABC Religion and Ethics) on topics related to religion and politics. His first book, Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness Amid Moral Diversity (Routledge/Ashgate, 2006), explores the theological responses to moral diversity in critical dialogue with Alasdair MacIntyre’s moral philosophy. It develops a constructive, theological response to the issues identified via the motif of "hospitality" and uses euthanasia and the hospice movement as a case study through which to examine the implications of this response. The second book, Christianity & Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), which won the 2013 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing, analyzes the church’s involvement in social welfare provision, community organizing, the treatment of refugees, and fair trade in order to develop an inductive account of what just and loving forms of social and political engagement entail. The third book, Resurrecting Democracy: Faith, Citizenship and the Politics of a Common Life (Cambridge University Press, 2015), grew out of a four-year ethnographic study of a multifaith community organizing initiative. It assesses the intersections between Christianity, radical democracy, globalization, secularity, responses to poverty, and patterns of interfaith relations. His fourth book, Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy (Eerdmans, 2019) provides an introduction to the history of and contemporary reflection on the relationship between Christianity and politics. And through addressing questions about poverty and injustice, forming a common life with strangers, and handling power, it develops an innovative political theology of democracy. His latest book is A Primer in Christian Ethics: Christ and the Struggle to Live Well (Cambridge University Press, 2023).