Liz is Curate and Associate Lecturer & Formation Tutor at St Mellitus College, South West. Liz studied for an MA in Mission and Ministry at Trinity College, Bristol, as part of her ordination training. There she discovered a particular passion for the Old Testament. Her dissertation focussed on the call on Moses in Exodus 3, and why God’s reply to Moses’ question ‘Who am I’ was ‘I will be with you’. Before her call to ordination she was working as a professional harpist and co-leading Unlimited with her husband, a church for ‘young people who don’t do church’ in Exeter. She is currently studying for a PhD with Aberdeen University, supervised by David Firth, exploring concepts of forgiveness in the Psalms. She is married to James they now live in Plymouth.
Education
- MPhys (Hons), Physics, St Peter’s College, Oxford
- DPhil, Physics, St Peter’s College, Oxford
- MA in Mission and Ministry, Trinity College Bristol
Areas of Interest
- Old Testament Studies
- Youth Ministry
- Mission
Research Projects
My research is entitled ‘Concepts of Forgiveness in the Psalms’. One aspect of this research will be to enhance the Christian understanding of forgiveness. A preliminary hypothesis is that much richness in the Christian understanding of forgiveness has been lost in Western Christianity, where Classical Protestant atonement theology, and notably Anselm’s penal substitution model of atonement, has taught that the ‘justice of God was vindicated, and the wrath of God was satisfied in the work of the Son’. This teaching emphasizing the wrath of God the Father, and the loving, sacrificial actions of Jesus the Son, I believe has led to a common misapprehension of the nature of God, perhaps most famously and extremely articulated by Dawkins in his book ‘The God Delusion’. By researching concepts forgiveness in the Psalms my hope is that it will enlarge our understanding of God’s eternal heart for forgiveness. There has been very little research on how the theology of forgiveness in the Psalms is related to the final shape of the Psalter. As such I hope that this proposed study will be a valuable contribution to the study of the Psalms. I also think that this work is particularly significant within Anglicanism given the centrality of the Psalms to our liturgy and worship.