DPhil (Oxon)
Historian of Religion
Welcome!
I am Christy, a historian of religion and public theologian. I work with seminaries and think tanks in Singapore, Taiwan, and the UK.
As a historian, I study the English Reformations and Puritanism, a strain of piety within the Church of England in the 16th and 17th century, and I have secured 6 publications based on my recently completed doctoral thesis. I am now working on 2 new projects:
(1) providence and profit in early modern English Protestantism;
(2) Chinese religion and politics in the English imagination, 1600-1730. Both projects investigate English Protestantism as a global phenomenon and pay attention to the English diaspora in non-Western regions, such as North Africa and the West Indies.
As an educator, I seek to empower learners of religious history to explore the historical roots of beliefs and norms. Ideas are powerful, and, through teaching, I encourage my students to investigate how ideas come into being and how they mobilise people to action.
I have taught many classes in the University of Oxford, including undergraduate tutorials on the figure of Jesus through the centuries, (a sample syllabus is available), and I am particularly experienced in teaching John Calvin's and Martin Luther's christologies and their respective social and political implications.
At Singapore Bible College, I focus my teaching on broad surveys of World Christianity, especially main thinkers and traditions in Western Christianity and in East and Southeast Asian Christianity, which sparked my latest research interest in early modern Sino-English relations. Besides teaching, I actively share my research and interests in the history of Christianity with the wider public as well. You may find my upcoming public activities here.
