Revd Dr Benjamin Aldous

I am currently Principal Officer for Mission and Evangelism at Churches together in England. During the past 15 years I’ve been involved in church planting and parish ministry. In Cambodia from 2004-2009 I was part of a rural church planting team under the auspices of OMF international working alongside Korean and Japanese colleagues helping to grow small congregations along the tributaries of the Mekong river. From 2010 until 2018 I worked with ACSA (Anglican Church of Southern Africa) initially as a pastoral assistant. I was ordained in 2011 and from 2013 I led an evangelical Anglican church in Wynberg, Cape Town called St Johns. Over the past 5 or 6 years I’ve been involved in reflecting on and researching fresh expressions in South Africa. I see myself predominantly as a missiologist and facilitator. I live in Devon with my wife and 4 children.

Qualifications

BA (Hons) Music and Theology	1998	Liverpool Hope University
MAAMS (Music – composition)	2003	Bristol University
MA (Global Mission)	2012	Gloucestershire University
PhD (Practical Theology)	2019	Stellenbosch University

Roles

Roles and responsibilities in the wider church / academia

I am a Trustee for CEA (Christian Enquiry Agency) and the Arthur Rank Centre. I am the special interest Group convenor for BIAPT Mission Studies and a board member for International Association of Mission Studies Europe.

Research Interests and Supervision

Research interests

I grew up in Cornwall and my see myself as a Cornishman with three hearts. I have been profoundly shaped by cross cultural experiences in Cambodia and South Africa and as a subsequence am interested in the missiological insights of theologians from East Asia and Southern Africa. My PhD work was around the idea of authenticity in fresh expressions of church in a non-western context. To that end I am interested in general in contextual theology and intercultural studies. I am also interested in research methods especially ethnography. I’m also keen to think more about issues of postcolonialism and ‘other’ in the South African context and how that might have resonance in the UK context. I have a background in music and I’m interested in the work of Jeremy Begbie and the intersect between music and theology. In my role at CTE I am interested in broad issues around ecumenism and mission.

Supervision areas and level

Contextual theology, general missiology, missional ecumenism, postcolonial mission, ethnography and related research methods, the theology of Kosuke Koyama, intercultural studies. I’m happy to be contacted by students up to MA level or early stages of PhD preparation

Publications

Books

• Aldous, B.J, Kwiyani, H, Rajkumar, P & Turner, V. ‘Lived’ Mission in 21st Century Britain: Ecumenical and Postcolonial Perspectives London: SCM Press (Jan 2024) Forthcoming
• Aldous, B.J. The God Who Walks Slowly: Reflections on Mission with Kosuke Koyama London: SCM Press (October 2022) https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334061113/god-who-walks-slowly
• Aldous, B.J, Dunmore, I & Seevaratnam, M, Intercultural Church: Shared learning from new communities Cambridge: Grove Books (2021) https://grovebooks.co.uk/products/mev-132-intercultural-church-shared-learning-from-new-communities

Articles and book reviews

• Aldous, B, Larner, L, Schliefenbaum, A & Sidhu, R Problems with Pioneering Mission: Reflections on the term ‘pioneer’ from Germany, South Africa and the UK. Ecclesial Futures 3(1), (June 2022) https://ecclesialfutures.org/article/view/12155
• Aldous, B.J. Christian Interculture: Texts and Voices from Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds. Edited by Arun W. Jones. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021 – A Review International Bulletin of Mission Research 46(2), (2022) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23969393211060052
• Aldous, B.J. Ecclesial Futures MA Prize details. Ecclesial Futures 2(2), (2021) https://ecclesialfutures.org/article/view/11874/13412
• Aldous, B.J. ‘Liturgy emerges from a wound’ Initial observations of developing ecclesial life from an ethnographic study of the Community Supper at St Peters, Mowbray, Cape Town International Review of Mission 110(1), (2021) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irom.12353
• Aldous, B.J. & Moynagh, M. A Mission Methodology: Learning from “Fresh Expressions of Church,” and the “Loving-First Cycle” through a Case Study from Cape Town Mission Studies 38(2), (2021) https://brill.com/view/journals/mist/38/2/article-p189_6.xml
• Aldous, B.J. African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church. By Elizabeth A. Foster. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019 - A Review International Bulletin of Mission Research 45(3), (2021) https://journals.sagepub.com/d...
• Aldous, B. J. Challenges to Pentecostal Theology in the 21st Century - A review (2020) https://www.cte.org.uk/Article...

Other

• Towards an assessment of fresh expressions of church in ACSA (The Anglican Church of Southern Africa) Through an ethnographic study of the community supper at St Peter’s Church in Mowbray, Cape Town’ (Stellenbosch University, 2019)
  https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/106062