On research leave for the 2023-24 academic year.
The Rev. Dr. Gabrielle Thomas joined the Candler faculty after serving as a lecturer in early Christianity and Anglican studies at Yale Divinity School. Prior to that, she spent two years as a post-doctoral research associate at Durham University in the United Kingdom. An ordained priest in the Church of England, she has served churches as both a lay and an ordained leader. She completed her PhD in Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham while working in full-time parish ministry. Thomas is a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Theological Reflection Group, a small group of academic theologians who gather with the archbishop for an extended visit twice a year to reflect theologically on pressing issues in the church and the world. She also mentors those discerning a call to ordination in The Episcopal Church.
In addition to authoring a significant number of journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, she has published three books: The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory Nazianzus (monograph, Cambridge, 2019), Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church: Explorations in Theology and Practice (co-edited, Cascade, 2020), and For the Good of the Church: Unity, Theology and Women (monograph, SCM Press, 2021). Thomas is a reviewer for Religious Education and SCM Press. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, among others.
BOOKS
Monograph, For the Good of the Church: Unity, Theology and Women, SCM Press, 2021
Editor, Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church – Explorations in Theology and Practice, Cascade, 2020
Monograph, The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory of Nazianzus, Cambridge University Press, 2019
CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES
“Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus on the Role of the Devil in Problems of Evil and Suffering,” International Journal of Systematic Theology, April 2024.
“Rethinking Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Theology: The Role of Hostile Powers in Homilies on the Song of Songs,” Theological Studies, Dec 2022, Volume 83, Issue 4, 537-553
“The Gift of Power in Methodism: Learning from Women’s Experiences of Working in Diverse Churches in England through Receptive Ecumenism,” in Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Vol 57, No 4, pp. 465-489, Fall 2022
‘Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light’: Re-thinking Advent Themes of Darkness with Gregory of Nyssa, Cambridge University Press (2022)
‘Mutual Flourishing in the Church of England: Receiving a Gift from the Orthodox Theological Tradition’, in Receptive Ecumenism as Transformative Ecclesial Learning: Walking the Way to a Church Re-formed, edited by Paul D. Murray, Gregory Ryan and Paul Lakeland,131-140 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).
“The Status of Vulnerability in a Theology of the Christian Life: Gregory of Nyssa on the “Wound of Love” in Conversation with Sarah Coakley”, Wiley Online Library (2022)
“Cappadocian Prayer,” in T&T Clark Companion to Christian Prayer, edited by Ashley Cocksworth and John McDowell, (London: T&T Clark, 2021).
“‘Giving the Devil his Due’ – the Role of Satan in Human Suffering,” in Love, Suffering and Diminishment in the Christian Life, edited by Karen Kilby and Rachel Davies, 43-54 (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
“‘Mutual Flourishing’ in the Church of England: Learning Receptively from Saint Thomas Aquinas.” Ecclesiology: The Journal of Ministry, Mission and Unity 15.3 (2019), 302-321.
“The Human Icon: Gregory of Nazianzus on Being an Imago Dei,” Scottish Journal of Theology 72.2 (2019)
“A Call for Hospitality: Learning from a Particular Example of Women’s Grass Roots Practice of Receptive Ecumenism in the U.K.” Exchange 47.4 (2018), 335-350.
Inspiring Yale Faculty Member, Yale University, 2020
Nominated as a “Woman Making a Difference,” Durham University, 2019
Scholarship L.A. Theology Conference, 2018
Jack Petchy Award for Outstanding Leadership, 2017
Church of England Research Degrees Panel (fully funded PhD), 2014
Church of England Research Degrees Panel, 2013
Sylvanus Lysons Trust, 2013
St. Luke’s Trust, 2013
St Matthias Trust, 2013
Anglican and Episcopal Contextual Education
Anglican and Episcopal History
History of Early Christian Thought
