Wycliffe’s graduate community: diverse, united, interesting, wonderful!

As Tutor for Graduates, it has been my great pleasure to have looked after the postgraduate community at Wycliffe for the last 13 years. Over that time we have seen it develop from a handful of students studying for doctorates alongside their ordination training, to a community of over 60, researching across the full breadth of courses that Oxford offers—from postgraduate diplomas and Masters, to DPhil programmes—with a multitude of different vocations and trajectories for their lives.

This year we welcomed 26 new students from 16 different countries. Although most students are studying theology—with many training for ordination—we also have graduates in history, psychology, philosophy, engineering, materials, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, applied linguistics, healthcare, literature and arts, and practical ethics.

Despite their different areas of focus, what unites these students is a desire to see faith and theology impact the world around them through their research. And it is at Wycliffe that they feel uniquely placed to achieve this. This is partly because of the spiritual support, the sense of community, and the wonderful provision that Wycliffe’s Graduate Society provides them—including research seminars, social events, desk and library space, and conference bursaries to name just a few elements. But it is also because of Wycliffe’s renewed focus on the importance of theology and our research to impact the global community that is such a central focus of the New Renaissance Project. Wycliffe currently has 18 doctoral students whose work will make a unique and lasting contribution to their chosen field. And each year Wycliffe postgraduates from a wide range of courses see their research presented at conferences around the world or published in journals or other periodicals.

It is a constant privilege to see the way in which God uses these students and Wycliffe to impact our world. However, such a kaleidoscopic community also offers a constant reminder of the astonishing ways that God chooses to reveal himself to us. At Pentecost God answers Babel’s chaos by uniting us once again through his word. And yet, the confusion that separated us isn’t overcome with a single language, but a multitude, spoken out of the depths of the people’s vocabulary, customs, and cultures.

The diversity of our community in our students’ expertise, experience, background, and vocation, and the ways these play into the development of their research, is a constant source of encouragement in the development of our own faith and the way in which we seek to understand and articulate God’s truths. It is also a wonderful reminder of the kaleidoscopic way God reveals himself to us and the sense of wonder that rests at the very heart of our faith.