Staff Type: Emeritus
Program of Study: Liturgical Studies
Biography: Professor Spinks teaches courses on marriage liturgy; English Reformation worship traditions; the eucharistic prayer and theology, Christology, and liturgy of the Eastern churches; and contemporary worship. Research interests include East Syrian rites, Reformed rites, issues in theology and liturgy, and worship in a postmodern age. His most recent books are Do This in Remembrance of Me: The Eucharist from the Early Church to the Present Day, SCM Press (London 2013), and The Rise and Fall of the Incomparable Liturgy. The Book of Common Prayer 1559-1906, SPCK (London 2017). He coedited, with Teresa Berger, The Spirit in Worship—Worship in the Spirit (2009) and Liturgy’s Imagined Past/s. Methodologies and Material in the Writing of Liturgical History Today (2016). Other recent publications include ‘From Functional to Artistic? The Development of the Fraction in the Syrian Orthodox Tradition’, in Anaphora 10:2(2016),89-114. ‘Reflections on the Making of the Church of England’s Common Worship 2000, Sewanee Theological Review, Vol.61:1 (Christmas 2017), pp.105-126, and ‘When the Present became the Future: The Ambiguity behind the Consent in the Marriage Rite of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.’ Journal of Anglican Studies 16(2018),23-32. He has a number of essays and articles in the Press, and is currently working on a book on Scottish Presbyterian worship with the working title Proposals for Organic Change: The Evolution and Devolution of Worship in the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland from c.1843 to the Present.
Professor Spinks is a former president of the Society for Oriental Liturgy, former coeditor of the Scottish Journal of Theology, a former member and consultant to the Church of England Liturgical Commission, president emeritus of the Church Service Society of the Church of Scotland, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of Churchill College, Cambridge. He is a regular Sunday Presbyter in the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry. Professor Spinks is a fellow of Morse College.
B.A. (Hons), Dip.Th. University of Durham; M.Th. University of London; B.D., D.D. University of Durham
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