Revd Dr David Emerton is Director of St Mellitus College, East Midlands. Before this David was the Principal of the School of Discipleship in the Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham and before that a Teaching Fellow in Systematic & Historical Theology at the University of Aberdeen, where he also completed his doctorate. Prior to moving to Aberdeen, David served as a member of clergy in the Diocese of London, and prior to ordination he worked in the City of London as a corporate lawyer. Outside of theology and the church David’s interests include: Liverpool FC, crime novels, endeavouring to keep fit, his wife, Naomi, and his two young daughters (although not necessarily in that order…).

• PhD in Systematic Theology (supervised by Prof. Tom Greggs, examined by Profs. David F. Ford and Ralf K. Wüstenberg), University of Aberdeen.
• MA in Systematic Theology, King’s College London.
• BA (Hons) in Contextual Theology, St Mellitus College London.
• Postgraduate Diploma in Law, The Oxford Institute of Legal Practice.
• Graduate Diploma in Law, Nottingham Law School.
• MA (Hons) in History, University of Edinburgh.

• Foundations for Theology and Reflective Practice
• Church History
• Ecclesiology
• Topics in Christian Doctrine
• Sacramental Theology and Ministry
• Advanced Topics in Christian Doctrine
• Methods in Modern Theology
• Advanced Study of a Christian Figure: Bonhoeffer

• Ecclesiology
• Major doctrinal loci
• Theological Hermeneutics
• Modern Protestant German thought
• Christian discipleship

David’s current research is focussed on the patience of God and the constructive outworking of this doctrine for how the church is called to live its life. The work is tentatively titled The Church in the Time of Jesus: Constructive Dialogues with Barth and Bonhoeffer on the Patience of God. David is also working on a more popular book, tentatively titled Real Life: Walking the Way of Jesus, which presents 12 aspects of discipleship, each of which arises from the text of Luke 9 and is unpacked in a threefold movement of scriptural exegesis; doctrine; and the habit of life that flows therefrom.

• Types of Ecclesiology: Five Theological Approaches (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024 forthcoming).
• “Ecclesiology and Christology,” in Christology: T&T Clark Encyclopaedia of Theology, ed. Jane Barter (London: T&T Clark Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
• “Jesus: the Centre of the Church,” in Bonhoeffer and Christology: Revisiting Chalcedon, eds. Matthias Grebe, Nadine Hamilton, and Christian Schlenker (London: T&T Clark Bloomsbury, 2023), 236–55.
• “Review (invited) of Eleanor McLaughlin, Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Late Theology,” Studies in Christian Ethics 35(1) (2022).
• God's Church Community: The Ecclesiology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020).
• “Review (invited) of Michael Mawson, Christ Existing as Community: Bonhoeffer’s Ecclesiology,” Ecclesiology 15 (2019).