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Centre for the Study of Modern Christianity: Annual Conference 2025

CSMC Annual Conference 2025
The Centre for the Study of Modern Christianity is pleased to announce the return of our annual conference series (which previously ran during 2013 to 2019 and then paused in light of the pandemic) in January 2025.

Our return event will take place at St John’s College, Durham, UK on Friday 10th January 2025.

The one day conference is targeted at a broad audience including, but not limited to, researchers, students, clergy and Christian organisations. Our aim is to create a welcoming and stimulating environment in which participants can present emerging and original research in order to share early findings and promote wide-ranging discussion and challenge.

We welcome submissions which present the findings of original research from any relevant disciplinary background, including practical theology, digital theology, sociology/anthropology of religion, ecclesiology and ethnography, and other empirical based research exploring Christianity and the church. In particular, we welcome papers which take a multidisciplinary or mixed-methods approach and which focus on research questions which are rooted in practice. Papers with a particular quantitative or qualitative focus are also welcomed. For more information on submissions, please see our call for papers (below).

Conference registration is open now until Monday 16th December 2024. Registration is priced at £35 full price and £20 for students and ordinands. To register and purchase conference tickets, please visit our Eventbrite store, using the button below.

Register & Buy Tickets

Call for papers

Submissions are invited for papers to be presented at the 2025 Annual Conference of the Centre for the Study of Modern Christianity. The CSMC, founded in 2022 having previously operated as the Centre for Church Growth Research since 2012, aims to produce and support high-quality research on Christianity both in Britain and internationally.

The conference presents an ideal opportunity to share early research findings with like minded researchers and test paper ideas ahead of journal article submission. The conference audience is likely to be a mix of researchers, students, clergy and Christian organisations and will, therefore, provide a forum conducive to wide-ranging discussion and challenge.

We welcome submissions which present the findings of original research from any relevant disciplinary background, including practical theology, digital theology, sociology/anthropology of religion, ecclesiology and ethnography, and other empirical based research exploring Christianity and the church. In particular, we welcome papers which take a multidisciplinary or mixed-methods approach and which focus on research questions which are rooted in practice. Papers with a particular quantitative or qualitative focus are also welcomed.

All relevant topics are welcome, but may include:

  • Church attendance/growth/decline
  • Case studies on contemporary Christian communities/practice
  • Christian expression and the church among diaspora/marginalised communities
  • Innovative approaches to studying Christianity/the church
  • Perceptions of, and attitudes to, Christianity/religion
  • Christianity/the church and youth
  • Christianity/the church and mental health
  • Ritual and scripture in the contemporary church
  • Digital theology and/or the application of digital technology by Christian/church communities

Submission rules

  • Authors should submit abstracts of original papers which have not yet been published (though we particularly welcome submissions which are being considered for journal peer review in parallel) or presented elsewhere.
  • Papers will be reviewed by the conference organisers and accepted on the basis of academicmerit and fit with the scope of the conference.

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