Welcome to the website of . . .
James Byrne
Professor and Chair of Department of Religious Studies
St. Michael's College, Burlington, Vermont
Activities, Scholarship, etc.
Ongoing: book, Science and Religion: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark)
Spring Semester 2009: Upper Level Inter-disciplinary Seminar with Prof. Doug Green (Biology) on Science and Religion
April 30 - May 5, 2008, European Society for the Study of Science and Theology conference, Sweden.
January 4-8, 2007, Science and Theology Advanced Research Series Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
November 9-11, 2006: Seminar, "Rethinking Academic Freedom", Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.
Spring Semester 2006: Sabbatical leave; research on science and religion.
May 2006, Research on science and religion at the Zygon Institute, Chicago.
April 2006, Paper at the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology Conference in Iasi, Romania: "Science, Faith and Politics in the United States: The Evolution Controversy", published by Lund University Press in Studies in Science and Theology Volume 11 (2007/2008): "Humanity, the World and God: Understandings and Actions".
Here is a brief biography:
I was born in Wexford, Ireland. I have two degrees from the Gregorian University Rome: an undergraduate degree in theology (1983) and a postgraduate 'Licenciate' degree in fundamental theology (1985). My Ph.D. is from The School of Hebrew, Biblical and Theological Studies at the University of Dublin/Trinity College, Ireland (1990). My PhD dissertation was entitled: "Tradition and Deconstruction: The Theological Implications of the Postmodern Crisis of Continuity", a critique of some of the then-fashionable postmodern theorists. My post-doctoral work was done at the Institute for Ecumenical Research at the University of Tubingen (Germany) around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall (no I do not own a piece of the "wall").
After my post-doctoral work I taught at Trinity College Dublin, and at Saint Mary's College (University of Surrey) in London, England, where I was Head (Chair) of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies for several years. I moved to Saint Michael's College in September 2000.
I am currently working on my fourth book. My previous books are: God: Thoughts in An Age of Uncertainty (Continuum International Publishing, 2001); Religion and the Enlightenment From Descartes to Kant (Westminster/John Knox, 1997) and, as editor, The Christian Understanding of God Today (Columba Press, 1993). My publications in recent years include "Science, Faith and Politics in the USA: The Evolution Controversy" in Studies in Science and Theology Number 11 (Lund University Press, 2007); seven articles for The Encyclopedia of Christianity New York: Oxford University Press and London: Continuum International Publishing, 2005); my entries are: Karl Barth, Enlightenment, Humanism, Natural Theology, Neo-orthodox Theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Thomism. See also the entry "Bultmann and Tillich" in The Blackwell Companion To Modern Theology (Oxford, 2004).
I have been external examiner for the Bachelor of Theology degree at the University of Oxford, England, and editorial advisor to a leading academic publisher (SCM Press). In my research I continue to explore the interaction of religious beliefs and traditions with the ideas of modernity and post-modernity.
I live in Burlington with my wife Cecilia and son Ronan.