Rate My Professor David Tombs

David Tombs is the Howard Paterson Professor of Theology and Public Issues and Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago, roles he took up in January 2015 under the university's Leading Thinkers programme. An Anglican lay theologian originally from the United Kingdom, he holds an MA from Oxford University, an STM from Union Theological Seminary in New York, an MA from the University of London, a PhD from the University of London, and a PGCE from the University of Birmingham. Prior to Otago, Tombs lectured at the University of Roehampton in London from 1992 to 2001 and at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, from 2001 to 2014.

Professor Tombs' research centers on contextual and liberation theologies, particularly Latin American liberation theology, theologies of reconciliation, and the theology of the cross. He has pioneered the scholarly examination of crucifixion as a form of torture, an instrument of state terror, and a context enabling sexual violence, including forced nudity. His work also addresses how churches can improve responses to spiritual and sexual abuses, with expertise in religion and violence, gender-based violence, and church responses in Pacific contexts. Key publications include Latin American Liberation Theology (Brill, 2002), Explorations in Reconciliation (co-edited, Routledge, 2006), When Did We See You Naked?: Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse (co-edited, SCM Press, 2021), and The Crucifixion of Jesus: Torture, Sexual Abuse, and the Scandal of the Cross (Routledge, 2023). Other notable works feature the article "Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse" (1999) and recent chapters such as "A Closed Space: The Ten Women Shut Up by David" (2026). He delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture on "Latin American Liberation Theology and its Ongoing Legacy." Tombs' contributions have influenced theological discourse on violence, reconciliation, and religious abuse internationally.