Ep82. A Christian Engagement with Shari‘a, Joshua Ralston

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I sat down with Joshua Ralston to talk about his book Law and the Rule of God: a Christian Engagement with Shari’a (Cambridge, 2020). We discuss what lead him to this work, why discussions of law in Islam are missing in political theology (and why they matter), the problems of Protestant antinomianism, comparative theology and how recognising different conceptions of the law and its purpose assist interfaith work, and his account of public law as a provisional and indirect witness to the divine rule of justice

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Check out the free course on Christian-Muslim relations Dr Ralston mentions at the end of the interview, produced by the University of Edinburgh.

Joshua Ralston is Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh and director and co-founder of the Christian-Muslim Studies Network funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. He has published widely on Reformed Theology, Christian theological engagements with Islam, Arab Christianity, and on political theology. His monograph, Law and the Rule of God: A Christian Engagement with Shari'a was pubslished by Cambridge University Press (2020) and he has co-edited two books, Church in an Age of Global Migration: A Moving Body (Palgrave, 2015) and Religious Diversity in Europe: Comparative Political Theology (Ferdinand Schöning, 2020). He is currently working on a monograph tentatively entitled, Witness and the Word: An Approach to Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Prior to moving to Scotland, he was Assistant Professor of Theology at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. He earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy at Wake Forest University, before going on to study World Christianity at Edinburgh (MTh with distinction), divinity at Candler School of Theology (MDiv), and Christian Theology and Islamic Thought at Emory University.

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