Religion and the Frontier Challenges
Religion and the Frontier Challenges is a postdoctoral fellowship programme that was established in 2019. The programme is based at Pembroke College, with an affiliation to the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and is part of the University of Oxford.
This is an ambitious and interdisciplinary research programme that brings Theology and Religion into dialogue with other academic disciplines. It seeks to enrich discussion of how contemporary religious traditions and ideas might provide or are providing knowledge and leadership in facing the major challenges currently confronting humanity. Taking its title from the words of a Catholic theologian who called for religion to meet the ‘frontier challenges’ of our time, the programme supports research projects that explore the intellectual and practical responses that any religion might make to these frontier challenges, including:
- The challenges of human knowledge, including contemporary ideologies and epistemologies (e.g. secularism, liberalism, atheism), or changes in forms of access to or dissemination of knowledge (e.g. new communications, media, or digital technologies).
- The challenges of the fight for justice, including struggles against all forms of inequality, discrimination and marginalisation in human societies.
- The challenges of the modern sciences, including the new questions and opportunities raised by advances in technological, medical, biological, environmental and other sciences, and the challenges of sustainability.
Meet the Team
Professor Justin Jones
Justin is the coordinator of the Religion and the Frontier Challenges Programme. He is Associate Professor in the Study of Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and is Pembroke College’s tutorial fellow in Theology and Religion. He is a historian by training, and works in the social history of modern Islam, with particular reference to the Indian subcontinent. In recent years, he has been exploring contemporary Islamic family law. Drawing upon law and anthropology as well as history and Islamic studies, he is examining how shariah-based family laws are adjudicated in South Asia, both by courts and by community organisations. He has also worked on Islamic discourses of women’s rights, and has worked with grassroots Muslim women’s rights groups. Separately, he has interests in Muslim laws in comparative minority contexts, including in Britain and Europe. He has published a number of books, journal articles and other publications.
Dr Emily Qureshi-Hurst
Emily Qureshi-Hurst is a philosopher whose research focuses on the philosophical questions raised by interactions between science and religion, particularly physics and Christianity. Emily has written on issues in the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of time (including issues in special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and temporal experience), the philosophy of physics, and the philosophy of social media. Before taking up this fellowship, Emily completed her D.Phil at the University of Oxford (funded by AHRC) under the expert supervision of Alister McGrath. Her thesis examined the theoretical support for a B-theory of time provided by special and general relativity, and re-interpreted Paul Tillich's doctrine of salvation in light of this metaphysical temporal model.
Christopher Wadibia
Christopher Wadibia is a scholar of the politics of modern Pentecostalism. His doctoral research studied the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), one of Nigeria's most popular and sociopolitically influential indigenous Pentecostal churches, and how its politics underpins investment in Nigerian development causes; and his next project will study the nexus between political Pentecostalism and racism in the UK. Prior to joining the programme, Christopher completed a BA Government at Georgetown University (2016), an MPhil Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies at Trinity College Dublin (2018), and a PhD Theology and Religious Studies at Selwyn College, Cambridge (2021). Alongside his Junior Research Fellowship, Christopher serves as the Assistant Editor of the academic journal PentecoStudies and is an Affiliated Researcher at the Cambridge University Woolf Institute. Christopher’s research interests include global Pentecostalism; religion, politics, and global development; religion, society, and public policy; and Muslim-Christian relations. Christopher is passionate about bridging academic research with public engagement, and welcomes opportunities to supply consultative solutions to problems related to his expertise.
Dr Gehan Gunatilleke
Gehan Gunatilleke is a lawyer specialising in religious freedom, constitutional law, and international law. He holds a D.Phil in Law from the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis focused on state authority to restrict the freedom of religion and the freedom of expression under international law. Gehan also holds a Master’s in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar, and an LL.M from Harvard Law School, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. Prior to taking up a position as Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, he was a visiting fellow at the Programme on Law and Society in the Muslim World at Harvard Law School. Gehan is concurrently an Early Career Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford, and a visiting lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, University of Colombo.
Dr Muhammad Faisal Khalil
Muhammad Faisal Khalil is an academic and practitioner specialising in theology, the study of religion, history, and social and behavioural change (SBC). His doctoral thesis, “The Ordinary Within Islam: Javēd Aḥmad Ghāmidī and the Representation of Prophethood in the Qurʾān” (2023), examined the significance of the ordinary in Islamic moral life—a theme central to his broader scholarly focus. This work argued that the primordial covenant between God and humanity is the foundation of moral life in Islam, expressed primarily through our everyday actions. Faisal holds an MSc in the History of International Relations, a BSc in Government and History, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE), all from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a certificate in Leadership in Strategic Communication for Health from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Health. He also studied theoretical physics at Imperial College London.
With over two decades of experience in the international development sector, Faisal is recognised for his expertise in SBC. His senior technical roles in prestigious organisations such as UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, UNFPA, M&C Saatchi, and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, along with his tenure as a senior advisor to Pakistan’s Federal Ministry of Interior, demonstrate his expertise in applying research and change strategies to improve social outcomes. Faisal is also the founder of All-Story, a film innovation studio that uses cinematic strategies to respond to major social challenges. His diverse work spans humanitarian and non-humanitarian contexts, across countries like Egypt, Malawi, the Philippines, Jordan, the UK, Iran, and Pakistan. Faisal has made significant contributions in HIV prevention, COVID-19 risk communication and community engagement (RCCE), flood response and recovery, polio eradication, child protection, family care practices, nutrition, road safety, tobacco control, and policy reform.
Our Projects
During this fellowship Emily will be pursuing a project that brings philosophy and theology into dialogue with physics, and examines the challenges faced by Christianity in the light of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and the philosophy of time. Important research questions include:
- What does QM reveal about the nature of time?
The project will begin by discerning the best metaphysical theory of time given empirical and theoretical evidence from QM. Without a quantum theory of gravity, the exact meaning of QM for the nature of time will remain unanswered. This project will examine to what extent QM can be understood to support a B-theory of time, namely the metaphysical model that understands time as static, meaning all moments in time co-exist and time does not really pass.
QM and a B-theory of time pose a frontier challenge to core features of Christian theology, namely salvation and moral responsibility. Salvation requires change – an individual is transformed from a state of fallenness to a state of redemption. If time does not pass, as is the case on the B-theory, then how can an individual change from being fallen at one point to being saved at another?
Another highly important question in the block universe concerns the possibility of freedom. If all events already exist in distant regions of spacetime, as the block universe describes, then agents cannot change their futures. If agents cannot enact genuine change, is choice an illusion?
- What might different interpretations of QM mean for the human condition?
This project will also examine the Everett / Many Worlds Interpretation of QM, specifically focusing on a realist reading thereof. Everettians claim that the quantum equations, when taken at face value, entail the existence of a multiplicity of worlds. Moreover, these worlds are inhabited by many versions of us with whom we share a past and not a future. This fascinating and radical possibility is worth taking very seriously. This project intends to examine the implications of Many Worlds for the human condition. In particular, what it might mean for personal identity, salvation, and morality.
- How should Christian theologians and philosophers of religion respond to these challenges?
Whilst a significant aim of this project is to identify and express the challenges Christianity faces from modern physics, another important goal will be articulating possible responses to these problems. Included in this strand of the project will be a wider, outward-facing, dialogue with other scholars on challenges Christianity (particularly the doctrine of salvation) faces from modern science.
There is a substantial gap in the literature on the relationship between science and soteriology, despite the significant potential for such a dialogue. Of particular interest will be challenges posed to salvation by: evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, the possibility of AI, and extra-terrestrial life (to name but a few!). Each of these raises important questions about humanity and our place in the world, and therefore has the possibility to both challenge and enrich our understanding of the nature of salvation. This interdisciplinary and collaborative venture would be another way of examining how Christianity can respond to frontier challenges posed by the sciences.
As a Junior Research Fellow, Christopher will complete an innovative, interdisciplinary project that studies how Black British Pentecostals leverage their Christian faith and Christian organisational ties to tackle acts of racism aimed at Black British individuals and communities. Despite a majority of the world's people identifying as religious, religion itself accounts for a largely sidelined element of race and racism-related scholarship. A sizeable number of Black Britons, many of whom have emigrated from Nigeria and the Caribbean, identify as religious and turn to their faith for support in the aftermath of experiences with racism. Existing scholarship on Black experiences with racism commonly homogenises these experiences and this shortcoming does not account well for the diversity of Black experiences with racism in Britain and its own distinctions by origin, language, class, and economic status. As the world continues to globalise and racially integrate, Black transnational organisations increasingly use their resources to combat racism in majority white countries. In Britain, religion and Black transnationalism intersect in the form of Black transnational churches; this intersection presents an opportunity to study how Black religious transnationalism addresses racism.
Migrant Pentecostal churches signify an especially suitable microcosm in which to interrogate the intersection between transnationalism, Black experience, and racism. Nigerian and Caribbean Pentecostals, which denote two of Britain's most populous and politically active Black ethnic groups, will be this project's communities of interest. Studying how Nigerian Pentecostals respond to racist experiences alongside Caribbean Pentecostals supplies a vital comparative lens to this research. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), which is one of Nigeria's most influential indigenous Pentecostal megachurches as well as the UK's largest Black religious organisation, and a number of Caribbean Pentecostal churches, will function as organisational research partners. This project will also assess the emergence of political Pentecostalism, via Black Pentecostals, in the British context. Similar to political Islam, political Pentecostalism employs other-worldly rhetorics but expects this-worldly reforms. Political Pentecostalism stands primed to become one of the next religious traditions that significantly impacts British politics.
The two research questions inspiring this study include:
- How does religion individually, collectively, and institutionally shape responses to racism within Black British Pentecostal communities?
- In what ways is the RCCG's response to racism in Britain informed by transnationalism?
Interdisciplinarity, a focus on combining cutting-edge academic research with inclusive forms of public engagement, and public policy centricity centrally inform this study and this project has been designed with the ambition of helping to de-polarise and normalise contemporary race-related discourses. The findings of this study will be deliberately packaged into a list of actionable public policy recommendations that can inform present-day public policy debates concerning how the UK government can most effectively tackle varieties of racism aimed at Black British individuals and communities.
Gehan’s research sets out to explore the relationship between religion and social cohesion. It critically examines the impact of Sri Lanka’s inter-faith conflict resolution mechanisms. Over thirty such mechanisms have operated in Sri Lanka in the recent past, and have had varied levels of success. The research project attempts to answer the following research questions:
- To what extent have Sri Lanka’s inter-faith conflict resolution mechanisms succeeded in promoting societal cohesion, and preventing, mitigating, and containing religious violence and discrimination at the national and sub-national levels?
- Are mechanisms that build on commonalities between various faiths and religious traditions more sustainable and legitimate, and more likely to succeed in promoting societal cohesion and resolving conflicts?
The project aims to test the hypothesis that a model of ‘overlapping consensus’ – the idea that more sustainable and legitimate principles of justice can emerge from the overlap between various religious and philosophical traditions – can provide the foundation for successful inter-faith mechanisms in Sri Lanka.
In addition to his role as an Associate Member of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology and Religion, Faisal is a Junior Research Fellow in the Religion and Frontier Challenges programme at Pembroke College. He investigates the complex ways in which religious actors, institutions, traditions, and ideas influence the practice of child marriage, with a particular focus on the concept of the child within Islam. In collaboration with UNICEF Pakistan, this project aims to produce high-impact academic publications and develop actionable, religion-based intervention strategies to prevent and mitigate child marriage. The project is also expected to advance our understanding of the potential role of religion in interventions to bring about social and behavioural change. Key features of the research methodology include in-depth interviews with South Asian scholars and the examination of religious texts to discern theological perspectives on child marriage.
This research focus aligns with Faisal’s wider research into the ordinary within Islam. In his parallel research project, “The Ordinary Within Islam: Javēd Aḥmad Ghāmidī and the Covenant of the Child,” he proposes that the child’s inherent vulnerability and dependence makes it the central moral patient in Islam, and therefore, the ‘ordinary par excellence’ within Islam. This argument redefines Islamic piety to emphasise constant moral action and compassion within an imperfect world as the true expression of the covenant between God and humanity.