CURRICULUM VITAE MARTIN FORWARD PERSONAL DETAILS Address: Dr Martin Forward, Aurora University, 347 South Gladstone Avenue, Aurora, Illinois 60506-4892 Tel. (630) 844 6535; Fax: (630) 844 5242 E-mail: [email protected] Current Positions Executive Director of the Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action; Wackerlin Chair of Religious Studies: Aurora University ACADEMIC DEGREES PhD 1995 University of Bristol MLitt 1982 University of Lancaster (with distinction) BA (II.I) 1975 Theology and Religious Studies, University of Cambridge BA (II.I) 1973 History, University of Manchester EDUCATION 1990-95 University of Bristol: part-time PhD student, Dept of Theology and Religious Studies 1977-82 University of Lancaster: part-time MLitt student, Dept of Religious Studies 1979 University of London, SOAS: intensive course in Urdu 1975-77 University of Osmania, Hyderabad, India: part-time student in Islamic Studies, Urdu and Arabic 1973-75 University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam College: affiliated student 1970-73 University of Manchester: undergraduate 1957-70 Primary and secondary education in Singapore, the Isle of Man, Aden and England LANGUAGES English, French, Urdu Reading knowledge of Arabic, Latin, New Testament Greek HONOURS AND AWARDS . 1998 August-September: Smuts Memorial Scholarship to visit Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa 1991 Honorary member of the Islamic Association of Singapore 1975 World Council of Churches’ scholarship to study in India EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE Full-time Employment 1995-2001 Academic Dean, Wesley House, Cambridge Member of the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity; and of its Religious Studies Committee and Doctrine Committee Founder Director, Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge 1988-95 Director of Inter-Faith Relations, Methodist Church 1982-88 Methodist Minister, Leicester (Trinity) circuit 1977-82 Methodist Minister, West London Mission. Methodist Chaplain, University of London. Free-Church Chaplain, National Heart and Middlesex hospitals 1975-77 Fraternal worker, Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies, Hyderabad, India Academic Positions 1995-2001 Member of Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity 1995-96 Lecturer and examiner on ‘An Introduction to the Life, Thought, and Worship of Islam’, in the University of Cambridge’s Oriental Studies Faculty 1994-95 Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion, University of Derby (part-time) 1991-95 Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol (part-time) 1989-90 Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Dept of Religious Studies, University of Leicester (part-time) 1987-93 Part-time lecturer for the East Midlands Ministerial Training Course RESEARCH INTERESTS 2 . Current Research Jewish-Christian Relations. The opening of the Centre for the Study of Jewish- Christian Relations in Cambridge led me to reflect more deeply on the history between the two faiths, to discover positive links as well as a ‘history of contempt’. Islam, especially Islamic Modernism in South Asia. Religion in Contemporary India: spirituality or social responsibility? Theological and other ‘touching points’ between religions: questions of truth and dialogue, spirituality, justice and peace. Research Completed Earlier My initial research work led to an MLitt on the life and work of Syed Ameer Ali (1849- 1928), the first writer of a biography of the Prophet Muhammad in English, a high court judge in Bengal and the first Indian member of the Privy Council. This has been published, in revised form, as The Failure of Muslim Modernism? My PhD work was on the life and work of Geoffrey Parrinder (1910-2005), the distinguished scholar of religious studies. As a Methodist student of that discipline, I was intrigued to discover how he, a Methodist minister, responded to the fact of religious diversity. Thereby, I hoped to be able to articulate my own responses in as clear and eirenic a way as he has done. This has been published, in revised form, as A Bag of Needments. My travels, courtesy of international conferences and working for the BBC World Service, have interested me in how people reflect on their own faith in the context of a religiously plural world. This led me to edit a book called Ultimate Visions, whose contributors were: Raficq Abdalla, John Berthrong, Marcus Braybrooke, Dan Cohn- Sherbok, David Craig, Lily de Silva, Voyce Durling-Jones, Asghar Ali Engineer, Mary Pat Fisher, Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios, Elizabeth Harris, Jocelyn Hellig, Monika Hellwig, Frank Kaufmann, Julius Lipner, Eric Lott, Gerrie Lubbe, Wendy Momen, Daleep Mukarji, Anantanand Rambachan, S.N. Rao, Saba Risaluddin, Jyoti Sahi, Mohinder Singh, Ninian Smart, Robert Stockman, Karma Lekshe Tsomo, and William Montgomery Watt. The foreword is by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. TEACHING I have taught at the universities of Leicester, Bristol, Derby and Cambridge; and for Anglia Polytechnic University. At undergraduate level, the subjects have included: An Introduction to Islam Modernist Movements in Islam Islam in Britain Jewish-Christian Relations Truth and Dialogue An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 3 . An Introduction to the Study of Religion The Study of Theology - Wesley Texts In Bristol, I supervised a number of third year dissertations. One student has proceeded to doctoral research in Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; and others have pursued research related to Islamic Studies in the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol. As a member of Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity, I lectured in the Faculty of Divinity on ‘Jewish-Christian Relations’ and on ‘Wesley Texts’. I led seminars on themes in the History and the Methodology of the Study of Religion for the new one-year MPhil degree. Under the modular systems at Anglia Polytechnic University, I offered MA units on: Pastoral Theology in History and Practice Jewish-Christian Relations Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation African and Asian Perspectives on Mission and Dialogue Jewish-Christian Relations: The Foundations and their Contemporary Relevance Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust I have participated in academic conferences on inter-faith subjects in: France, Germany, Turkey, Canada, the USA, the Jordan, the Russian Federation, South Korea, Sri Lanka and India. In two cases, I moderated groups at these conferences, and have prepared five papers in all. Examinerships Higher Degrees: I have acted as external examiner for PhDs at: Edinburgh University, Madurai Kamaraj University (Tamil Nadu, India) and UNISA (The University of South Africa, Pretoria); and for an MA by research at Birmingham University. I have acted as an assessor for students at the end of the first year of their doctoral research at Cambridge University. Examiner for MTh and MPhil: Westminster College, Oxford (1995-99); and Cambridge University (1995-2001). Examiner for BA: From 1996 to 2000, I was a supervisor, examiner and assessor for Part I, Prelims and Part II of the Theological and Religious Studies Tripos in Cambridge University (including third year dissertations on many aspects of world religions). The subjects were: Paper 13 Problems of Truth and Dialogue in Religion Paper 20 Study of Theology Paper 26 The Religious Traditions of India: Hinduism and Buddhism 4 . Paper 27a The Concept of the Legal System in Judaism Paper 27b An Introduction to the Life, Thought, and Worship of Islam Paper 36b Christian and Jewish Responses to the Holocaust I have also examined at undergraduate level for the Universities of Leicester and Derby. SPECIAL LECTURES 2002 December. Teape Lectures in India. 1999 January and February. Teape Seminars in Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity on the theme of The Divine in Human Form in India. The two lectures were entitled ‘Jesus in India: an Oriental Christ?’; and, ‘Seeing the Divine in India: A Body of Faith and Love’. 1998 August. Three lectures to the Vacation Term for Biblical Study on the theme Words of God?: ‘Holy Books’; ‘Wholly Other?’; and, ‘Scriptures in Inter-Faith Dialogue’. 1993 October. A lecture to academics at the University of Durban and thereafter to the University of the Witwatersrand, ‘The Content and Ethos of Religious Education in a Plural Society’. 1992 August. A lecture, ‘Christian and Muslim Relations in Contemporary Britain’, read to the Islamic Association of Singapore. 1991 May. A lecture, ‘African Traditional Religion: A Christian Theological or an Anthropological Construct?’, at Anglican and Methodist Theological Seminaries in Umuahia, Nigeria. 1989 December. A lecture, ‘Christians in Dialogue with People of Other Faiths’, at the Tao Fong Shan Study Centre, Hong Kong. 1988 November. A lecture, ‘The Quest of the Historical Muhammad’, to staff and student members of the Department of History in the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. 1985 A lecture read to the Abu’l Kalâm Azâd Institute, Hyderabad, India, on ‘The Role of Women in the Islamic Thought of Syed Ameer Ali’. ADMINISTRATION 5 . I run the new Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action at Aurora University. I am responsible for offering educational opportunities in the area of faith and action. I was Acting Principal of Wesley House for six months in 1997, in charge of the college property, and responsible for formal links with the Methodist Church through the Trustees of the college. As Dean, I was responsible for determining which academic course each Methodist ordinand should take as part of their ministerial