Rachel Muers

Driving tradition forward

This summer, Rachel Muers will take up the oldest professorial chair at the University of Edinburgh – the Chair of Divinity, established in 1620 as part of a drive to turn what was the Town’s College into the University of Edinburgh. An outstanding theologian, Muers will make history as both the first Quaker, and the first woman, to hold the post in its 402 year history.

“It’s an august line to step into. It feels a bit odd, but I’ve been doing things that feel a bit odd for a long time!” Muers’ engagement with theology began when reading Bonhoeffer’s Letters from Prison as a 16 year old.”I thought it was amazing! I was enthusiastic about lots of disciplines, but in theology I found one discipline that contained them all. I fell in love with the richness of the subject in its ability to ask the biggest questions in the company of people who have lived across two millennia.”

Professor Rachel Muers

In my own work, I look at emerging questions of societal import, and ask ‘what does theology have to say in response?’ Society poses profound questions to the theological tradition, and they call for theological responses that are both critical and constructive.

“When the chair was first created, its incumbent was expected to make students “dispute” once a week – a way of testing out ideas through lively debate rooted in Medieval academic culture.

Muers’ own approach to teaching drives that tradition forward: “As a teacher, I am persistently interested in trying to help students think about thinkers whose assumptions are different to their own. In my classes, we always ask why someone thought as they did. They had reasons, and it’s important we understand them. Theology and Religious Studies are so important because they have the ability to train that kind of intellectual empathy, which is more important than ever in the contemporary world. In theology, we do that all the time.”

What excites Muers about coming to Edinburgh? “Apart from that Edinburgh itself is a beautiful city, New College is a theological community with a great reputation. It brings together individual scholars in a community where ideas cross-fertilise. It has a strength of tradition, but that tradition also looks outwards – for example, in thinking about Christianity globally, and in theology’s responsibilities within the academy and society.

“In my own work, I look at emerging questions of societal import, and ask ‘what does theology have to say in response?’ Society poses profound questions to the theological tradition, and they call for theological responses that are both critical and constructive.

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