Barnabas Palfrey

Barnabas Palfrey

Tutor in Christian Doctrine & Spirituality and Director of Studies

Barnabas completed his PhD at Oxford University in 2014 on the work of the Roman Catholic theologian David Tracy (b. 1939). He is co-editor of Beyond the Analogical Imagination: The Theological Vision of David Tracy (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Breaking Boundaries in Theology: In Conversation with Roger Haight SJ (BRILL, 2025).

From 2012–2019, he co-led the MA in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College, specialising in modern and philosophical approaches to spirituality while developing a strong interest in pre-modern theology. Barnabas has taught at St Augustine’s since 2017 at both BA and MA levels, and in July 2025 was appointed Tutor in Christian Doctrine & Spirituality and Director of Studies.

Publications

  • ‘Seeking Good Answers to Big Questions about the Gospels’, Transforming Ministry (Central Readers’ Council), 126 (4), Autumn 2026, 6-8.
  • ‘John Robinson and primitive Christian eschatology: contexts and comparisons then and now’, Theology, 124(4), 2023, 266-270.
  • ‘The Disputed Letters of Paul and the Ethics of the Art Trade’, Theology, 124(2), 2021, 101-107.
  • ‘The Changing Face of Christian Discipleship among Young Adults’, Transforming Ministry (Central Readers’ Council), 120 (4), Winter 2020, 18-19.
  • ‘Luke’s Gospel and the Qur’an’, Theology, 122 (5), 2019, 347-354.
  • ‘John Piper and the Romantic Legacies of John Ruskin, Samuel Palmer and John Sell Cotman’: contributing essay to Hitting the Nail on the Head: the Complete Writings of John Piper, ISBN 978-0-995757301, ed. O Levinson (Song of the Wild Swan, Oxford 2017).
  • ‘Landscape’: essay in the Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art and Architecture (revised edition), ISBN 978-80199680276 ed. Tom Devonshire Jones (OUP, November 2013).
  • ‘The Revd Dr Victor Kenna OBE, 1899-1978’: essay for the exhibition catalogue John Piper and the Church, ISBN 978-0957145900, eds. P Jordan Evans and J Cartwright (Friends of Dorchester Abbey/Bohun Gallery, Henley on Thames 2012). This publication was nominated for the 2013 William M B Berger Prize for British Art History.
  • ‘A Gift of Smiling Colour’: introductory essay in the exhibition catalogue, John Piper in Kent and Sussex, ISBN 978-09567676-0-8 (Mascalls Gallery, Tunbridge Wells and Towner Gallery, Eastbourne 2011).

Book Reviews and Other Articles

  • Stephen has many credits for articles and reviews in Art and Christianity (ISSN 1746 6229) and has written several feature articles for the Church Times newspaper including ‘Fellow Feeling for a Scarred Landscape’ (on the poet Jack Clemo and the Painter Peter Lanyon), Church Times 7903, 5 September 2014.
  • Stephen regularly reviews publications for the international journal Theology, and Transforming Ministry magazine.

Lectures, talks and conference papers

  • Stephen is well known in Canterbury and Rochester Dioceses for his ‘Islam for Anglicans’ teaching days and courses, which he delivers with infectious enthusiasm for congregations and deaneries and – on a much larger scale – as Diocesan training events and at conferences.
  • Stephen has also featured as guest lecturer at various museum and gallery shows in the South East region, most recently at Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery (‘The People of the English Landscape, c1800’; and ‘English Watercolours’).