The Centre for the Study of Modern Christianity (CSMC) is an academic research centre based at Cranmer Hall, part of St John's College at Durham University.

Cranmer Hall, Durham
Joined December 2012
Pleased to announce the next CSMC Annual Conference... 19 Apr 2024 at St John's College, Durham, UK. More info (inc call for papers): tinyurl.com/csmc-ac24 Registration and tickets: tinyurl.com/csmc-ac24-regist… Hope to see you there!
147
Delighted to announce that 'Digital Theology: A Computer Science Perspective' which I wrote recently with @prof_Erkki has been shortlisted for @the_issr's 2022 Book Prize. Winners to be announced later this year. The book is available for purchase at: amzn.to/3kzELEC
Fascinating data from Fenggang Yang's new Atlas of religion in China: brill.com/view/title/36038
UTU Dept of Computing (@utucomp) have released a short video interview, in which I discuss my recent PhD thesis: youtu.be/y60SxwpQQgU There's also brief discussion of my new postdoctoral research @UniTurku toward the end. Thesis freely available at: utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/1…
Smith & Adamczyk's Handing Down the Faith, from OUP - research on how parents transmit faith to their children: global.oup.com/academic/prod…
Excited to start my new postdoc research project this week. Title is: "Prayer online: An analysis of the role of technology in Christian prayer". The project will explore a range of soc med platforms and use cases and will take a mixed-methods approach. DM me for more info!
1
7
Having operated as the Centre for Church Growth Research (CCGR) since 2012, today we re-launch as the Centre for the Study of Modern Christianity (CSMC), reflecting our broader research interests/projects. This promises to be another busy year! Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
2
12
Cranmer and Pocklington, ‘The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the exercise of religion in the United Kingdom’ [2020] 54 Revista General de Derecho Canónico y Derecho Eclesiástico del Estado. Available at: churchstate.eu/pdf/COVID19/U…
Valuable discussion from Kirk Petersen on how COVID skews church statistics in USA: livingchurch.org/2021/10/07/…
Ideas from the US blog 'Covenant' on who might be the greatest Anglo-Catholic church planter: livingchurch.org/covenant/20…
1
2/2 The Research and Stats Dept. of the CofE deserve great credit for bringing the figures together. Can be seen here: churchofengland.org/media-an…
1/2 Church of England's statistics for 2020 just out, deeply impacted by the pandemic, so their significance is hard to determine,
Exciting news: In Jan '22 the Centre for Church Growth Research will re-brand and re-launch as the Centre for the Study of Modern Christianity. This reflects our broadening research interests over the past 9 years; our current research projects and publications continue at pace!
New data on the impact of covid on UK churches, from the Evangelical Alliance: eauk.org/assets/files/downlo…
Many congratulations to Ant Cooper for being awarded his PhD from the University of Turku, researching the application of twitter data to church attendance.
3
Becoming Catholic by David Yamane - insightful study of the 150k conversions to Catholicism in USA each year: global.oup.com/academic/prod…
Christians from the 18th and 19th centuries who pioneered environmentalism: livingchurch.org/covenant/20…
On 12 Nov I will be publicly defending my PhD thesis which explores the possible uses of Twitter data in studies of church attendance (please DM me for further details). For those interested, my thesis is now freely available online here: utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/1…
1
4
1
13