Prof. Michael S. Northcott BA MA PhD

Prof. Michael S. Northcott: Professor of Ethics
EMAIL ICON/GRAPHIC: EMAIL ADDRESS DISPLAYED TO THE RIGHT M.Northcott@ed.ac.uk
TELEPHONE ICON/GRAPHIC: TELEPHONE NUMBER DISPLAYED TO THE RIGHT +44 (0)131 650 7994

Introduction

Professor of Ethics

Michael Northcott was educated at Durham and Sunderland Universities. He taught at the Seminari Theologi Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur before coming to the University of Edinburgh in 1989. He has supervised twenty-five doctoral students while at Edinburgh and former students teach at Universities and colleges in Australia, Canada, the United States, Ghana, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka. He is an ordained Anglican Priest, a trustee of the Fair Trade organisation Traidcraft, Honorary Canon of Liverpool Cathedral and Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology. He has been visiting professor at the
Claremont School of Theology, Duke University, Flinders University, and the University of Malaya.

He is best known for his work in environmental theology and ethics and his book The Environment and Christian Ethics (CUP 1996) is in its fourth printing. More recently published books include Life After Debt: Christianity and Global Justice (SPCK, 1999), An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire (I B Tauris, 2005) and A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming (Darton Longman and Todd and Orbis Press, 2007). Forthcoming co-edited volumes include Diversity and Dominion: Dialogues in Ecology, Ethics, and Theology (Duke University Press, 2009) with Kyle Vanhoutan and Theology After Darwin (Paternoster Press, 2009) with R. J. Berry.

He has written more than sixty scholarly articles and is presently pursuing a number of research projects including an edited volume on the theological implications of Darwin's Origin of Species, an interdisciplinary collaborative work on the theological and ethical implications of the present extinction crisis, entitled The Genesis of Extinction, and a longstanding project on the theology and ethics of work and its technological reshaping entitled The Morality of Making: Ethics in a Technological Society.

He is actively engaged in speaking and writing from his research beyond the academy. He lectures on climate change, ecology and religion at ecumenical and ecclesiastical fora in Britain, Europe and beyond. In March 2008 he lectured at a three night symposium on 'Values for a Sustainable Planet' at Pilgrim Church, Adelaide, and his lectures can be heard at http://www.pilgrim.org.au/symposium/index2008.htm.

Selected Publications

The Church and Secularisation: Urban Industrial Mission in North East England. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1989
The Environment and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; reprinted 1999
Urban Theology: A Reader. London: Cassell, 1998
Life After Debt: Christianity and Global Justice. London: SPCK, 1999
An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004
'Two Hundred Years of Anglican Mission in West Malaysia', in Lee Kam Hing, W. John Roxborogh and Robert Hunt, (eds.), Christianity in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk, 1992
'Identity and Decline in the Kirk', in Seeing Scotland: Seeing Christ? Edinburgh: Centre for Theology and Public Issues, 1993
'A Place of Our Own', and 'Children', in Peter Sedgwick (ed.), God in the City. London: Mowbray, 1995
'Sociological Approaches to the Study of Religion', in Peter Connolly (ed.) Approaches to the Study of Religion. London: Cassell, 1998
'Christian Futures, Postmodernity and the State of Britain', in Ursula King (ed.), Faith and Praxis in a Postmodern World. London: Cassell, 1998
'Natural Law and Environmental Ethics', in Nigel Biggar (ed.), The Revival of Natural Law: The Finnes and Grisez School. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000
'Sabbaths Shamans and Superquarrying on a Scottish Island: Religio-Cultural Resistance to Development in a Contested Landscape 17 34 in Fred P. Gale and R. Michael MGonigle (eds.), Nature, Production, Power: Towards an Ecological Political Economy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2000)
'God and Human Cloning', in Russell Stannard (ed.), God for the 21st Century (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation, 2000)
'Pastoral Theology and Social Science' in James Woodward and Stephen Pattison (eds.), A Reader in Practical Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000)
'Ecology and Christian Ethics' in Robin Gill (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
'The Declaration and the Spirit of Environmentalism' in R. J. Berry (ed.), The Care of Creation (Leicester: Intervarsity Press, 2000)
'"Behold I have set the land before you" (Deut 1.8): Christian Ethics, GM Foods, and the Culture of Modern Farming', pp. 85 - 106 in Celia Deane-Drummond, Bronislaw Szerszynski with Robin Grove-White (eds.) Reordering Nature: Theology, Society and the New Genetics (London: T and T Clark, 2003)
'Being Silent: Time in the Spirit' in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics edited by Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells (Blackwell, 2003)
'The Word in Time and Space' in Peter J. Francis (ed.) Faithfulness in the City (Hawarden: St Deiniols Library, 2003)
'Salmon and Sacraments: Farmed Salmon and Christian Practice' in W. Storrar and A. Morton (eds.) Public Theology Today (London: T. and T. Clark, 2004)
Donald and Ann Bruce (eds.), Engineering Genesis: The Ethics of Genetic Engineering. London: Earthscan, 1999
'A Survey of the Rise of Charismatic Christianity in Malaysia', Asia Journal of Theology, 4/1 (1990), pp. 266-78
'The Case Study Method in Theological Education', Contact, 103/3 (1990), pp. 26-32
'Research Methods in Practical Theology', Contact 106 (1991), pp. 24 - 33
'Christian-Muslim Relations in West Malaysia', The Muslim World 81/1 (January 1991), pp. 48 - 7
'Preston and Hauerwas on Centesimus Annus: Reflections On the Incommensurability of the Liberal and Post-Liberal Mind', Theology 96, no. 769 (1993), pp. 27 - 35
'New Age Rites: The Recovery of Ritual', The Way 33/3 (1993), pp. 189 - 198
'New World Order or New World Enemies? Christianity and the Other in the Post-Cold War World', New Blackfriars 74/872 (1993), pp. 319 - 327
'From Environmental U-topianism to Parochial Ecology: Communities of Place and the Politics of Sustainability, Ecotheology, 7, (2000)
'Do Dolphins Carry the Cross? Biological Moral Realism and Theological Ethics', New Blackfriars, (December 2003)
'"An Angel Directs the Storm": The Religious Politics of American Neoconservatism' Political Theology (April 2004), pp. 137 - 158.
'The Parable of the Talents and the Economy of the Gift', Theology, (June 2004), pp. 241 249
'The Market, the Multitude and Metaphysics: Ronald Prestons Middle Way and the Theological Critique of Economic Reason', Studies in Christian Ethics (September, 2004)
'Wilderness, Religion, and Ecological Restoration in the Scottish Highlands', Ecotheology (January, 2005)
'Concept Art, Clones and Co-Creators: The Theology of Making' Modern Theology (April, 2005)
Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming, Darton Longman and Todd (London) and Orbis Books (New York) (forthcoming)