Joseph Sverker

Teol. dr, Senior lecturer, Head of subject

I began as a lecturer in Systematic Theology and Church History at Stockholm School of Theology in 2017. That same year I also presented my PhD dissertation in Systematic Theology at Uppsala University. I lectured at Uppsala University during my PhD and prior to that I was working as an A-level/highschool teacher. Teaching is in other words a great part of my professional life and continues to be so. Some of my main courses in Stockholm School of Theology are the introduction to Church History, Systematic Theology and Ethics, as well as advance courses in Christology and Reformation history and theology. Since 2019 a minor part of my lecturing is also on the undergraduate program for Human Rights.

My research interests are broad, but my dissertation project, like my current project, centers round theology’s potential to critically and constructively contribute to current questions about and understanding of the human being. My dissertation, published by ibidem/Columbia University Press as Human Being and Vulnerability: Beyond Constructivism and Essentialism in Judith Butler, Steven Pinker and Colin Gunton, explores underlying factors for the division between nature and nurture, or the social and the biological by a close reading of the thinkers Judith Butler and Steven Pinker together with theologian Colin Gunton. Christology in particular and the doctrine of the Trinity provide a novel way to broach the question. The context for the dissertation was school and institutionalization and in the current project, together with Linde Lindkvist, the emphasis is on the conceptualization of the human being in and beyond Human Rights.

Over the last few years I have been involved in setting up Hönö Connects, an international network of academics, activists, politicians and journalists seeking to respond to the growing influence of the far right and right wing populism in Europe.

Theology’s potential and capacity of critically analyzing society as well as contribute to its development is a recurrent theme in other words. But more traditional areas of systematic theology such as Christology, doctrine of the Trinity, atonement and doctrine of Creation is of great interest. 

Somewhat outside of my academic role, but still very much as a theologian, I am writing, what could be called a systematic theology for children based on a large amount of the children’s own questions about faith, life, God, Jesus, science, apes dinosaurs, and the list goes on. This has turned out to be a great and very rewarding challenge. This work has also made me come in contact with the Child Theology Movement. This emphasis on communicating theology to children will most likely affect my research too, and has already done so in the project on Human Rights.