Guido de Graaff

Director of Studies & Tutor for Christian Doctrine and Ethics

“By the time they begin at St Augustine’s, students have already reflected much on their faith and calling, which they continue to do throughout their studies. Teaching theology to people with such a level of commitment is a great privilege.”

Guido joined the staff in 2010 as Tutor for Christian Doctrine and Ethics, and Director of Studies.

After studying theology in the Netherlands, Guido moved to Oxford to do a doctorate in Christian Ethics. His research focused on the political significance of friendship, particularly from the perspectives of Christian political theology and ethics. A revised version of his dissertation was published in 2014 under the title Politics in Friendship: A Theological Account (Bloomsbury / T&T Clark). His current research focusses on Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in particular on Christ’s representation of humanity as the theological key to understanding the many ways in which human represent each other.

Guido is member of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics (UK). Guido is also a member of the Society for the Study of Theology (UK); the Society of Christian Ethics (USA) and the American Academy of Religion (USA).

Guido lives in central London – if only for the sake of good coffee – and enjoys his (almost) daily cycling commutes between Rotherhithe, London Bridge and the East End.

Publications

Book

  • Politics in Friendship: A Theological Account. London: T and T Clark, 2014.

Book chapters

  • ‘Friends as Servants of Peace: Extending O’Donovan’s “Evangelical Counter-Praxis’, in Ad de Bruine and Gerard den Hertog (eds), The Present “Just Peace / Just War” Debate. Two Discussions or One? Beihefte zur Ökumenische Rundschau. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt GmbH, 2018 (114-128).

  • ‘Overcoming Ethical Abstraction: Peaceableness, Responsibility, and the Rejection of Foundationalism in Bonhoeffer and Hauerwas’, in Matthew Kirkpatrick (ed.), Engaging Bonhoeffer: The Impact and Influence of Bonhoeffer’s Life and Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016.

  • ‘Friendship’, in Draycott, Andy and Jonathan Rowe (eds), Living Witness: Explorations in Missional Ethics. Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2012.

Translations

  • Bernd Wannenwetsch, ‘Inwendigheid en Commercialisering’, in Herman Paul and Esther Paul-Jonker (eds), Verlangen: een theologische peiling. Zoetermeer (NL): Boekencentrum, 2014.

Original publication: Bernd Wannenwetsch, ‘Inwardness and Commodification: How Romanticist Hermeneutics Prepared the Way for the Culture of Managerialism – A Theological Analysis’, Studies in Christian Ethics 21:1 (2008), 26-44.

  • Robert Spaemann, Essays in Anthropology: Variations on a Theme. Translated by Guido de Graaff and James Mumford. Eugene OR: Cascade, 2010.

Original publication: Robert Spaemann, Das Natürliche und das Vernünftige. Aufsätze zur Anthropologie. München: Piper, 1987.

Journal articles

  • ‘Friends with a Mandate. Friendship and Family in Bonhoeffer’s Ecclesiology’. In Studies in
    Christian Ethics 30, no. 4 (2017), 389-406.
  • ‘Intercession as Political Ministry: Re-Interpreting the Priesthood of all Believers’. In Modern
    Theology 32, no. 4 (2016), 504-521.
  • ‘To Judge or Not to Judge: Engaging with Oliver O’Donovan’s Political Ethics’. In Studies in Christian Ethics 25, no. 3 (2012), 295-311.

Conference papers

–

Society of Christian Ethics (USA)

  • ‘Equal Members of a Global Family: Theological Reflections on Human Dignity in Conversation with Jeremy Waldron.’
    Annual conference, Toronto, 7-10 January 2016

Society for the Study of Christian Ethics (UK)

  • ‘Human Equality as Family Membership: A Response to Jeremy Waldron’s 2015 Gifford Lectures.’
    Annual conference, Westcott House, 4-6 September 2015
  • ‘The Tragedy of Human Self-Evaluation: Barthian Reflections on “Quality of Life” and (Assisted) Suicide’
    Annual conference, Westcott House, 7-9 September 2012
  • ‘To Judge or Not to Judge? Engaging with Oliver O’Donovan’s Political Ethics’
    Annual conference, Westcott House, 3-5 September 2010

Society for the Study of Theology (UK)

  • ‘Friends as Servants of Peace: Extending O’Donovan’s “Evangelical Counter-Praxis”’, Annual Conference, University of Nottingham, 24-27 April 2017

  • ‘Intercession as Political Ministry: Re-Interpreting the Priesthood of All Believers’
    Annual Conference, University of Nottingham, 13-15 April 2015.

  • ‘Neither Utopia Nor Realpolitik – Political Friendship in Theological Perspective’
    Annual conference, Durham, 31 March – 3 April 2008
  • ‘A Gift of Common Judgment. The Friendship between George Bell and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’
    Annual conference, Girton College, Cambridge, 26-29 March 2007

Other

  • ‘Friends with a Mandate’. Ethics and Social Theology meeting, Tyndale Conference, High Lea, 4-7
    July 2016.
  • ‘Friendship and the Ethics of Mission’. Ethics and Social Theology meeting (Tyndale Fellowship), Wolfson College, Cambridge, 30 June – 2 July 2011.
  • ‘Friendship as Common Judgment’. Inaugural Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture: ‘Friendship – Quests for Character, Community and Truth’, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, 25-27 October 2007.
  • ‘Public Happiness in Political Friendship. Discussing an Aristotelian Theme in Hannah Arendt’s Philosophy’. Biannual Bonn-Oxford Postgraduate Conference, Oxford, 17-20 September 2007.