John Moxon: A unique academic career spanning physics and theology

Charles sits down for a chat both broad and deep with John Moxon, interim deputy dean, educational partnerships lead and academic discipline officer in the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. John has an impressive range of professional expertise – from software to religious studies. With doctorates in both physics and theology, he currently publishes papers about the Acts of the Apostles whilst teaching Discrete Maths at Roehampton. On this week’s show, he talks about his academic career, explaining why he made the move from science to the humanities, why he thinks theology still has a bright future, and why we should be more worried about society’s dwindling faith in science. John’s theology paper mentioned on the show: ‘An Unnoticed Jacob–Esau Allusion in Acts’ Religions 2022, 13(5), 434. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/5/434 Chapters 00:08 Introduction 00:55 John’s research on the book of Acts 03:31 On the’ nerdy aspect’ of biblical studies 06:00 John’s original background 09:19 Trips to South America 11:56 Changing academic fields 17:25 Is faith a prerequisite to theological studies? 18:27 The state of Theology as an academic field 22:38 Reflections on Artificial Intelligence 25:30 Wrap-up The Roey Grad Podcast is a presentation of the University of Roehampton’s Graduate School. Our theme music is by DiamondTunes Our hosts are two PhD students at Roehampton, Charles Miller and Will Berard, who also edits and mixes the podcast. It was produced by Aaliyah Hassan. Comments, questions, want to appear on the show? Get in touch at [email protected]