Specialisation in Religious Studies
DOCRS-2024-01: Christianity and Moral Leadership
Leadership should be considered broader than the traditional sense of conceiving it as solely limited to institutions or individuals that occupy positions endowed with power or influence in leading a group or society. When ordinary people seek to direct or influence others toward views or priorities that impact people’s lives, leadership is also present. This area of research focuses on the interrelationship between Christian values and moral leadership on the level of the universal and the situational and in its theoretical and practical aspects. It includes research on Christianity’s relationship and dialogue with the practice of ethical or moral leadership in various subjects such as society in general, politics, digital platforms, popular movements, the environment, and pastoral care.
Principal Supervisor: Ian Shelley Sasha Pugal Alabanza (ianalabanza@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: No keywords available
DOCRS-2024-02: Dogmatic Theology
Dogmatic theology is a discipline seeking to understand the Christian faith, particularly the confession of faith expressed in the credo. It entails the speculative study of God and his works, such as the doctrine of God, Christology (e.g. the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ, the life of Christ), redemption(e.g. the nature of grace, the last things), Sacraments (e.g. general principles of sacramental theology, the nature of each sacrament). Following Scripture and Church tradition, dogmatic theology engages in the explanation of the content of Christian faith in a coherent way and in dialogue with different cultures.
Principal Supervisor: Thomas Cai (thomas.cai@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: No keywords available
DOCRS-2024-03: Biblical and Linguistic Studies
Biblical studies focus on scriptural texts in three different dimensions. First, from a historical perspective, what a given biblical passage might or could have meant for the intended audience was first composed. Second, from a literary perspective, how a given biblical passage achieves its rhetorical goal, constructs its narrative progression, and how the textual and lexical elements within a course relate to each other semantically, linguistically, and semiotically. Finally, biblical studies approach scriptural texts concerning how they have been or are being received by the different generations of their readers. For example, how a given biblical text should be interpreted as part of the canonical bible; how a given biblical passage has been used in history. Contemporary biblical hermeneutics propose to approach the text from perspectives inspired by the fruit of the latest insights of human sciences, e.g., sociological, psychological, and other contextual approaches are also possible perspectives for modern readers to appreciate and appropriate the inexhaustible meanings of the biblical texts.
Principal Supervisor: Andrew Leong (andrew.leong@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: No keywords available
DOCRS-2024-04: Philological/Linguistic Analysis of Biblical Texts
Philological analysis of Biblical texts compared with Akkadian, Sumerian and Ugaritic non-Biblical texts have helped biblical investigation achieve great new hermeneutic and exegetical results in the past two centuries. The linguistic and philological analysis of Biblical texts and Apocrypha has become an essential tool for assisting the texts in revealing their secrets. The linguistic analysis of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic for the Old and New Testaments, as well as Coptic, Geʿez, and Old Slavic, amongst other ancient languages, for the Apocrypha, is an ever-growing research area for religious and Biblical studies and an indispensable element for the edition and publication of new Apocrypha and other ancient texts which are being discovered every day.
Principal Supervisor: Roberto Ceolin (roberto.ceolin@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: No keywords available
DOCRS-2025-01: Faith Communities, Secularisation and Religious Resilience
Professor Percy’s work is broadly situated at the nexus of religion, society, ethics, and global futures. He supervises projects that focus on faith communities, secularisation
and religious resilience. His work in ecclesiology centres on the church's performance, policies, practices, and theologies, with particular attention to the
identity and development of denominations in the 21st century.
Recent work on the economic contribution of the slave trade to the enhancement of developed world denominations has brought international attention to the study of ecclesial polity, ethics, and financial history. This includes working in areas such as climate crises, whose consequences are indiscriminate in the challenges they pose to nations, societies, communities, faiths, denominations, and individuals.
Principal Supervisor: Martyn Percy (martyn.percy@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Faith Communities, Secularisation and Religious Resilience, Church's Performance, Policies, Practices, and Theologies
DOCRS-2025-02 : Contemporary Fundamentalism and Revivalism
Professor Percy’s original doctoral research drew on anthropology, sociology and theology – and primarily focussed on contemporary fundamentalism and revivalism,
developing a novel framework to enable a richer understanding of the conflation between divine and human power (e.g., teaching, leadership, polity, structures,
governance, reification, etc) in churches and Christian movements. He has published extensively in this field. This includes congregational studies and ethnography. His
post-doctoral research concerned theories and practices in power and authority within modern cultural-ecclesial contexts. Recent work focuses on the study of churches, denominations, organisations and institutions, education, ecclesiology, social theory (esp. anthropology) and theology, and the
parameters of contemporary religion.
More recently, Prof. Percy has developed work that explores the challenges posed by contemporary culture to those engaged in ministry, with work including The Exiled Church: Reckoning with Faith in Secular Culture, (Canterbury-SCM Press 2025), The Precarious Church: Redeeming the Body of Christ (Canterbury-SCM 2025), and The
Humble Church: Renewing the Body of Christ, (Canterbury-SCM, 2021).
Principal Supervisor: Martyn Percy (martyn.percy@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Contemporary Fundamentalism and Revivalism, Conflation between Divine and Human Power, Parameters of Contemporary Religion, Modern Cultural-Ecclesial Contexts
DOCRS-2025-03 : Anglican Theology and Ecclesiology
Professor Percy supervises students undertaking research in Anglican theology and ecclesiology. In 2002, he founded the Society for the Study of Anglicanism at the American Academy of Religion, focusing on the interdisciplinary study of Anglican theology and ecclesiology. He supervises doctorates and also extensively examines this field.
His monographs in the field include Anglicanism: Confidence, Commitment, Communion ( Routledge, 2013), The Future Shapes of Anglicanism: Charts, Currents, Contours, (Routledge, 2017), Comprehension and Communion: Samuel Seabury and the Church, (Wipf & Stock, 2025) The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England, (Hurst Publishing, 2025) and The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies, (with Mark Chapman, Oxford University Press, 2014).
Recent significant work in the field includes editing the Journal of Anglican Studies (2024, volume 22 issue 2) on safeguarding practices.
Principal Supervisor: Martyn Percy (martyn.percy@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Anglican Theology, Anglican Ecclesiology, Anglican Studies
DOCRS-2025-04: Ministry Studies and Congregational Studies
Professor Percy supervises in Pastoral and Practical Theology, with a unique concentration on Ministry Studies and Congregational Studies. He has examined and supervised this field extensively and welcomes students who want to pursue research in this field. He works in contextual, practical and pastoral theology and in the field of ecclesiology, exploring and explaining the situation of Christianity in contemporary culture, which forms the core of his concerns.
His published works in this arena include Clergy: The Origin of Species, (Bloomsbury & T&T Clark International, 2006), The SPCK Handbook of the Study of Ministry, (eds. with I. Markham & E. Percy), SPCK, 2019) and Clergy, Culture and Ministry: The Dynamics of Roles and Relations in Church and Society, Ian Tomlinson & Martyn Percy SCM-Research Press, 2017.
Principal Supervisor: Martyn Percy (martyn.percy@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Ministry Studies, Congregational Studies, Christianity in Contemporary Culture
DOCRS-2025-05: Ecclesiology and Cultural Theory
Professor Percy supervises theses in the field of Ecclesiology and Cultural Theory, explaining the relationship between imperialism, democracy and ecclesial polity. For
example, English Anglicanism has developed itself as the lead character within its own ‘serious fiction’ (c.f., Edward Said, “the imagination of empire”) – the main religious player in a drama of empire and church. Yet, in collusion with colonialism, the Church of England has now become a captive entrapped within a narrative of its own composition.
English interests concealed the extent to which slavery, exploitation, classism, and racism played their part in bolstering both the Empire and the Church by adopting elitist and hierarchical worldviews. Religious, social and political imperialism are founded on the deprecation of others. Yet, at the same time, those deprecated peoples fought for equality and independence.
Principal Supervisor: Martyn Percy (martyn.percy@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Ecclesiology and Cultural Theory, Imperialism, Democracy and Ecclesial Polity, English Anglicanism
DOCRS-2025-06: Spiritual and Religious Resources for Sustainable Life-styles and Development
The project sets out with the existing body of research on the relevance of spiritual and religious resources for Sustainable Development (SD) (e.g. State of the World 2010; Laudatu Si'; Education for SD), and enriches the expertise by exploring and integrating selected philosophical, spiritual and religious traditions - especially of the Asian and Chinese context. The aim is to retrieve, consistently present and integrate meaningful resources and traditions that help to foster sustainable life-styles and societies (and reach SDGs), e.g. the relevance of finding and practicing life-giving limits, such as the virtue of temperance and moderation, or of fasting. Research results will enrich contemporary Christian Social Teaching and Moral Theology and shall deliver elements for a consistent Resource and Consumer Ethics serving sustainable life-styles and societies.
Principal Supervisor: Franz Gassner (franz.gassner@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Social Ethics, Laudatu Si', Sustainable Development, life-style, fasting
DOCRS-2025-07: Contemporary Hermeneutics of Biblical and Other Classical Literature
"Contemporary Hermeneutics of Biblical and Classical Literature" involves the study of modern interpretive methods applied to the texts of the Bible and the works of classical antiquity. This field delves into how contemporary theories of interpretation and criticism, such as reader-response theory, feminist theory, post-colonialism, and post-structuralism, are used to analyze and reinterpret these foundational texts. It seeks to uncover new meanings and insights that resonate with current societal values and issues, while also respecting the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were originally produced. Scholars in this area may explore various themes such as the influence of historical context on interpretation, the interaction between text and reader, and the ways in which these ancient writings continue to influence modern thought and culture. The goal is to provide a deeper understanding of both the texts themselves and the ways they can be applied or understood in the contemporary world, thereby enriching both academic discourse and broader cultural conversations. This interdisciplinary approach often draws on methodologies from fields such as literary studies, philosophy, theology, and cultural studies.
Principal Supervisor: Andrew Leong (andrew.leong@usj.edu.mo)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy
Keywords: Hermeneutics, Bible, Literature
