Tom Greggs is Director of the Center of Theological Inquiry. A globally renowned academic and speaker, Dr. Greggs is known as one of the world’s leading theologians. His work is focused on Theology outside of the conditions of Christendom. He is interested in what new theological questions and insights this context raises and how to articulate Theology in a circumstance of secularism and pluralism.

Greggs grew up in a working-class family in Liverpool, England. The first member of his extended family to receive any education beyond the age of 16, he originally studied Theology with the intention of becoming a full-time Methodist minister. He is, therefore, particularly passionate about what Theology can mean for the world we live in and for the transformation of society. For him, the issue is how Theology matters and the ways it can contribute to the life of the academy, the church and society at large.

Greggs joined CTI as its Director having previously been Head (Dean) of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen where he also held the The Marischal Chair, the University’s first separated Divinity Chair founded in 1616. Greggs steered the University of Aberdeen to be ranked first in the UK for research in Theology and Religious Studies in the Government’s qualitative, peer-based Research Excellence Framework. Divinity at Aberdeen also came to comprise a quarter of the entire University’s post-graduate research student population, and received 100% satisfaction as a teaching institution.

Greggs was educated at the Liverpool Blue Coat School. He went to Christ Church, University of Oxford as an Open Scholar to read Theology, graduating first in his year. He studied for his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he taught historical and systematic Theology. At 28 Greggs was appointed to a full professorship at the time the youngest full professor in the UK and was the youngest full professor ever appointed by the University of Chester which elevated him to a chair.

Greggs has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia and a Visiting Fellow at St John’s College, Durham. He is a former Secretary of Society for the Study of Theology and former panel chair and book awards jury chair of the American Academy of Religion. He is Honorary Professor of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen and Honorary Professor of Systematic Theology at St Mellitus College, London. In 2008, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scotland’s national academy). He also holds the higher (earned) doctoral degree of Doctor of Letters.

A committed churchperson and preacher, Greggs is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, and is a former theological advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 2002, he was recognized as a Preacher in the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and since then has preached and led services for local congregations most weeks.

Greggs is married to Heather (a former Headteacher and specialist teacher of deaf students) and they have two young daughters, Isabel and Lydia.

The principal focus of Greggs’ current work is a three-volume evangelical theology of the church outside of Christendom, published by Baker Academic. The first volume is already available as Dogmatic Ecclesiology 1: The Priestly Catholicity of the Church. He also has three books in press currently, and is writing a book on hope.