Episode 09: A Conversation with Oliver O'Donovan

The Civitas Podcast

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by special guest Oliver O'Donovan to discuss political theology.

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Oliver O’Donovan, born in 1945 in London, held teaching posts at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Wycliffe College Toronto before becoming Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church at the University of Oxford in 1982. He was Professor of Christian Ethics & Practical Theology at Edinburgh from 2006 to 2012. Ordained as a priest of the Church of England, he was an active participant in ecumenical dialogue and a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics. He has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2000.

He has held distinguished visiting lectureships in Cambridge, Durham, Rome, Hamilton, Pasadena and Hong Kong, and delivered the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews University in 2021.

He is the author of The Problem of Self-Love in Saint Augustine (Yale 1979), Begotten or Made? (Oxford University Press, 1984), Resurrection and Moral Order (Eerdmans, 1986), On the Thirty-Nine Articles (Paternoster, 1986), Peace and Certainty (Eerdmans, 1989), The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Common Objects of Love (Eerdmans, 2002), The Ways of Judgment (2005), Self World and Time (2013), Finding and Seeking (2014) and Entering into Rest (2017).

He was married to Joan Lockwood ODonovan in 1978 in Toronto. They have two sons, both musicians.

Jointly he and his wife are the authors of a well-received collection of readings in the history of Christian political thought, From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought 100 - 1625 (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1999) and of a volume of essays, Bonds of Imperfection. Christian politics past and present (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2004). The O’Donovans were married in 1978, and have two sons and four grandchildren.