Scott Cowdell

Biography

Scott Cowdell (b. 1960) grew up and studied in Brisbane. After a science degree in physics and mathematics at Griffith University he attended St Francis' Theological College and the University of Queensland, and was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1988. His PhD from the University of Queensland was awarded in 1994 with a dissertation on the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ in late-twentieth century Christian thought. His BA (Hons) and PhD dissertations were both published internationally. Fr Cowdell was a parish priest and theology tutor in Brisbane (1992-97), taught in the United Faculty of Theology at Trinity College in Melbourne (1997-98), and was Principal of St Barnabas' Theological College, Adelaide, also a Senior Lecturer in Theology at Flinders University (1998-2002). He was a longstanding Member of the Doctrine Commission of the Anglican Church (1996-2009). He came to Canberra in 2002 to be Rector of St Paul's Anglican Church, Manuka. In 2007 he was appointed as Canon Theologian of the Canberra-Goulburn Diocese and won a five-year research fellowship as an Associate Professor with PACT (Centre for Public and Contextual Theology), based at St Mark's National Theological Centre. Since mid-2012 he has held a research-only appointment at the Canberra Campus of CSU, funded from mid-2013 by a research grant from an American Foundation. He was promoted to adjunct Research Professor in mid-2014. Professor Cowdell is the author of seven books exploring Christian faith and contemporary culture, most recently Abiding Faith: Christianity Beyond Certainty, Anxiety, and Violence (Eugene, OR.: Cascade, 2009) and René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis (Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013). He is currently working on a second volume for Notre Dame entitled Nonviolent Theology: René Girard and the Drama of Salvation. With colleagues from the Australian Catholic University and The University of Western Sydney, he founded the Australian Girard Seminar and became its first President. To date they have produced three edited volumes with Bloomsbury (London and New York) in their own series, entitled "Violence, Desire, and the Sacred".

Research Interest

Theology