The 2025-26 McDonald Lectures of Candler School of Theology will be delivered by Sarah Coakley, Anglican priest and Norris-Hulse Professor Emerita at Cambridge University.
Sarah Coakley, Anglican priest and Norris-Hulse Professor Emerita at Cambridge University, will serve as Candler School of Theology’s 2025-26 Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on The Life and Teachings of Jesus and Their Impact on Culture. In this role, Coakley will present public lectures on Wednesday, Oct. 15, and Tuesday, Oct. 21.
The McDonald Lectures are made possible by the McDonald Agape Foundation.
Both events are free and open to the public with advance registration required. They will take place in Room 252 of Candler’s Rita Anne Rollins Building. A livestream option will also be available.
Coakley’s two lectures collectively take the theme “Re-Thinking ‘Mysticism’ and ‘Mystical Theology’ in Turbulent Times.” In both, she will explore why it is that “mysticism” is still a matter that fascinates many, both inside and outside churches. The 20th century saw the development of several influential theories of mysticism that strongly distorted the goals of classic Christian “mystical theology,” while nonetheless also adding new insights which endure.
More details and registration links for each lecture are below.
“Revisiting Modern Christian ‘Mysticism’: What Did the 20th Century Mean by It, and Why Does It Still Matter?”
Wednesday, Oct. 15
11 a.m.-1 p.m.
Rita Anne Rollins Building, Room 252
Register to attend the Oct. 15 event in person or online.
This lecture will critically compare the theories of William James, Ernst Troeltsch and Michel de Certeau, and reflect on what aspects of their work are still important in today’s context.
“Returning to Classic ‘Mystical Theology’: Why Contemplation and Apophasis Are Important for Contemporary Political Theology”
Tuesday, Oct. 21
4-5:30 p.m.
Rita Anne Rollins Building, Room 252
Register to attend the Oct. 21 event in person or online.
This lecture will probe the origins of “Mystical Theology” in the patristic period and beyond, and compare its demanding ascetical vision with current perceptions of mysticism in churches and wider culture. Coakley proposes that classic apophatic “contemplation” has, today, a very particular challenge and application to our current political world circumstances.
About the speaker
Sarah Coakley retired from the University of Cambridge in 2018, and has since continued work on her long-term project on systematic theology, begun in “God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’” (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Her latest (on Christology) is “The Broken Body: Israel, Christ and Fragmentation” (Blackwell, 2024). She is currently completing her next volume on sin and racism: “Sin, Racism and Divine Darkness: An Essay ‘On Human Nature’” (Cambridge, forthcoming).
From 2007-2018, Coakley served in the Norris-Hulse Professorship at Cambridge University. Since 2018, she has been an Honorary Professor at the Logos Institute, St. Andrews University, and since 2022 an Honorary Professor at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne and Rome). She previously served on the faculties of Lancaster University; Oriel College, Oxford; and Harvard Divinity School.
She is an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Coakley earned her BA/MA and PhD from Cambridge University, and her ThM from Harvard Divinity School. She holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Lund, St. Andrews, Toronto (St. Michael’s College), and London (Heythrop College).
An Anglican priest, Coakley co-founded with Samuel Wells the Littlemore Group, a small collection of Anglican priests and theological scholars devoted to the creative integration of pastoral ministry, prayer and theological reflection done from a parish context. The group has published five books since its inception in 2005.
About the McDonald Chair
The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and Their Impact on Culture is supported by gifts from the McDonald Agape Foundation, founded by Alonzo L. McDonald, a longtime trustee of Emory University. The McDonald Agape Foundation “supports lectures and other public presentations that deal creatively and imaginatively with the person and teachings of Jesus as they shape and form culture.”
Recipients are given a distinguished visiting professorship, in which they speak and teach in the focused area of Jesus’s effect on culture and conversely, culture’s shaping of the figure of Jesus.
Past McDonald chair lecturers include Judge John T. Noonan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; composer Alice Parker; art historian Herbert Kessler; historian and documentary filmmaker Randall Balmer; author James Carroll; Episcopal priest and bestselling author Barbara Brown Taylor; Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Garry Wills; Jesuit priest and film professor Lloyd Baugh; United Methodist Bishop Hee-Soo Jung; and theological scholars David H. Kelsey, David F. Ford, Walter Earl Fluker, Roberto S. Goizueta, M. Shawn Copeland, Luke Timothy Johnson, Christian Smith, and Brian K. Blount, among others. View a list of past chairs.