The Centre for Theology, Law, & Culture

An overview.

About

The Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture is an academic institute dedicated to enriching contemporary intellectual and cultural life by a rigorous engagement with Theology and related academic disciplines.

Based at Pusey House, the Centre draws upon Oxford’s longstanding and exceptional scholarship in Law and the Humanities, and in particular upon the Catholic tradition as received in the Church of England. The Centre hosts colloquia, lectures, and seminars, and supports scholars and scholarship in the pursuit of truth within the academy, and for the renewal of the Church within a pluralistic civic society.

The work of the Centre has recently been much extended by the generous donation of Mr Marek Matraszek.

Donations can be made online here.

The Centre's Director is Dr Jonathan Price, the Matraszek Fellow of Pusey House & St Cross College, University of Oxford.

Please see the 'Lectures' and 'Conferences' tabs on this website's banner to see the full range of our upcoming events, or consult our termcard.

Events

The Centre works within Pusey House to help organise academic events which bring together academics, students, clergy, public servants, and the general public.

Upcoming events

Natural Law & War

Thursday, 18 June 2026

In The Law of War and Peace (1625), Hugo Grotius revives two ancient questions: ‘What is war? What is law?’

The Dutch theologian-jurist thereby commences modern European discussions about just war and just peace, both of which were now meant to be conducted according to ‘law’.

Four hundred years later, war is still with us and peace seems just as difficult to make as it ever was. Law remains a contested domain, especially between jurisdictions and nations. It is unclear whether war is being waged or peace is being made according to any law. The questions are still with us. But we also enjoy the benefit of a welldeveloped tradition of natural law.

What can doctrines of natural law tell us about waging war and about peace-making? Are ancient sources that may have been unknown to Grotius’s age helpful in answering the questions? Do the ‘laws of nature’ that science has since uncovered help us? Can the theology, which undergirded both Grotius’s writings and the modern natural rights and human rights doctrines, help in answering these questions?

Join the Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture in Oxford for a two-day international conference, held in partnership with the Chase Center at Ohio State University, the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Canterbury Institute, Oxford.

More details available on the conference page.

Past events

A Genealogy of Post-Liberalism

4 March 2026

This afternoon mini-colloquium will consider the following questions:

What is 'post-liberalism'?
What is the origin of this idea?
And how can we better understand our own political moment by grasping the genealogy of this idea?

João Pinheiro da Silva (University of St. Andrews) and Jacob Williams (Oxford) will introduce their essay, 'Postliberalism: A Genealogy' (Telos, no. 212, 2025), why they wrote it, and what its thesis is.

There will be two respondents: Professor John Milbank (University of Nottingham) and Professor Paul Kelly (LSE), author of Against Postliberalism: Why 'Family, Faith and Flag' is a Dead End for the Left (Polity, 2025). More details available here.

Confession: The Church’s Gift to the World?

25 February 2026

This colloquium will gather an ecumenical array of speakers from these different traditions to consider some of the pastoral challenges and contemporary issues that are being faced by clergy today in the ministry of hearing confessions, and by the Church and Christians more generally. This will include, among other concerns, how confession relates to the commitment to safeguarding and the protection of the vulnerable, to the inviolability of the seal, and to the wider significance of confession in a culture that preaches tolerance without practicing forgiveness. The colloquium includes a public lecture at 4pm on Wednesday 25th February by The Rev'd Fr Ben Jefferies on ‘Dr. Pusey on the Effects of Absolution: Catholic but not Roman’. More details available here.

The Past and Future of Anglo-Catholicism

11 February 2026

The Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture at Pusey House invites you to a colloquium on 11 February to discuss what can be learnt from Anglo-Catholic socialism as a tradition that still bears relevance for our time. An impressive number of socialist priests and intellectuals were formed by the Anglo-Catholic tradition in the first half of the twentieth century, including Percy Dearmer, F.D. Maurice, R.H. Tawney, J. N. Figgis, Henry Scott Holland, Frank Weston, Conrad Noel, Albert Mansbridge, Charles Gore, Ken Leech, and John Hughes.

The conference will be preceded by a public lecture by Dr Jon Cruddas, former MP for Dagenham and Rainham, and author of The Dignity of Labour (Polity, 2021), at 4pm on Tuesday 10th February on "Catholicism and the Labour Party". More details available here.

Lectures

The Centre works with the Principal and Chapter to co-ordinate the House's flagship the Recollection Lecture series: recalling the major themes and thinkers of Christian history.

Recollection lectures take place in the Ursell Room at Pusey House at 4pm generally (unless noted otherwise). Tea and coffee is served in the Hood Room between 3.15 and 3.45pm.

You can see our lectures, given by scholars including John Finnis and Wim Decock, on our YouTube channel. Follow us to see upcoming series on early modern theology and law, the soul, and moral and political theology, as well as the co-organised Theological Conference on the theme of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Support and Contact

Please consider sponsoring one of our scholars or an upcoming colloquium or lecture series or book discussion group. It is only through the generous support of donors like you that the next generation of Oxford students, as well as interested scholars and policy-makers, might receive ancient wisdom in a setting of Christian life and worship. Donations can be made here.

Alternatively, donations can made by bank transfer with the following details:

Pusey House Chapel

Barclays Bank

Sort code: 20-65-18

Account no.: 10748455

Reference: Pusey Centre

For enquiries about the Centre, please contact Dr Jonathan Price at: jonathan.price@stx.ox.ac.uk

Pusey House, St Giles', Oxford, OX1 3LZ

Who we are

The centre's current scholars.

Dr Jonathan Price

Matraszek Fellow of Pusey House & St Cross College; Faculty of Law (University of Oxford).

Research:

Theological origins of modernity; philosophical anthropology; virtue ethics; philosophy of Private Law.

Dr Ryan Blank

Head of Politics, Harrow School, and Associated Researcher at Pusey House.

Research:

Modern British History, Ecclesiastical History, History of Intimacies, History of Masculinities.

Dr Clinton Collister

Assistant Professor of Theology and Great Books at the University of Northwestern, St Paul.

Research:

Theology and Literature; Moral Theology; Systematic Theology.

Miss Isabelle Heinemann

Doctoral Candidate at the University of Cambridge, and Researcher at Pusey House.

Research:

Intellectual History; the high middle ages; Dante Alighieri.

Mr Phillip Quinn

D.Phil. Candidate in Theology and Religion at Hertford College, Oxford, and Academic Intern, Pusey House

Research:

philosophical theology (especially in connection with moral theology); analytic theology; late antique philosophy and theology, patristic philosophy

Dr William Simpson

Scholar in Residence at Pusey House. Barry Fellow (Philosophy Dept., Austin, TX), Visiting Fellow in Philosophy (University of Durham), Research Associate (University of Cambridge Cambridge).