Michael Banner (born 1961) is Dean and Fellow of

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

. From 2004–2006 he was Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Genomics Research Forum and Professor of Public Policy and Ethics in the Life Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, and from 1994 to 2004 F.D. Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology, King’s College, London. Well known in science and public policy arenas, he was also a member of the

Human Tissue Authority The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom. It regulates the removal, storage, use and disposal of human bodies, organs and tissue for a number ...

, Chairman of the Home Office

Animal Procedures Committee The Animal Procedures Committee advised the British Home Secretary on matters related to animal testing in the UK. The function of the committee was made a statutory requirement by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (the ASPA), which mand ...

from 1998 to 2006 and a member of the

Nuffield Council on Bioethics The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is a UK-based independent charitable body, which examines and reports on bioethical issues raised by new advances in biological and medical research. Established in 1991, the Council is funded by the Nuffield F ...

from 2014 to 2016. Banner read Philosophy and Theology at Balliol College, Oxford (MA 1985, DPhil 1986). Appointments have included Bampton Research Fellow, St Peter's College, Oxford; Dean, Chaplain, Fellow and Director of Studies in Philosophy and Theology, Peterhouse, Cambridge; and FD Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology, King's College, London. He has been chairman of HM Government Committee of Enquiry on the Ethics of Emerging Technologies in Breeding Farm Animals and the CJD Incidents Panel, Department of Health. He has also been a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission. Apart from his government appointments, Banner came to prominence with his book ''Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems'', concerning which

Stanley Hauerwas Stanley Martin Hauerwas (born July 24, 1940) is an American theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. Hauerwas was a longtime professor at Duke University, serving as the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School ...

wrote that Banner is "one of the brightest and most interesting young people doing ethics on the scene today". Banner was the Peden Visiting Scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University in early 2012, and gave the

Bampton Lectures The Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford, England, were founded by a bequest of John Bampton. They have taken place since 1780. They were a series of annual lectures; since the turn of the 20th century they have typically been biennial ...

in Oxford in 2013, resulting in ''The Ethics of Everyday Life: Moral Theology, Social Anthropology, and the Imagination of the Human'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

). In 2022 Banner publicly defended the views of a post-doctoral junior named Joshua Heath, a Junior Research Fellow of

, who had preached a sermon in the College chapel in which he (not Banner) had suggested that the wounds of Jesus had a "vaginal appearance" and that the body of Christ "is also the trans body." Throughout the sermon he drew attention to "Christ's penis" as well what he called the savior's "vulvic side wound." He stated that Christ's "deeds could be interpreted as showing phallic virility" as well as "yonic fecundity." He reimagined the story of

Catherine of Siena Catherine of Siena (Italian: ''Caterina da Siena''; 25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and on the Catholic Church. ...

drinking from Christ's wound as an erotic experience in which her thirst is "slaked" on the crucified Lord. Worshippers reportedly left in disgust at the end of the service, and one sent a letter of protest to Banner. Banner was quoted in the Times as saying the preacher's views were a "legitimate" treatment of medieval artistic representations of the crucifixion and that his own response was then “grossly misrepresented”.

Publications

*''The Justification of Science and the Rationality of Religious Belief'' (OUP, 1992) *''The Practice of Abortion: A Critique'' (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1999) *''Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems'' (CUP, 1999) *''The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics'', ed. Michael Banner and

Alan Torrance Alan Torrance (born 1956) is professor of systematic theology at St Mary's College of the University of St Andrews. Previously he lectured at King's College London from 1993–1998, where he was also Director of the Research Institute in Systematic ...

(Continuum, 2006) *''Christian Ethics: A Brief History'' (Blackwells, 2009) *''The Ethics of Everyday Life: Moral Theology, Social Anthropology and the Imagination of the Human'' (OUP, 2014)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banner, Michael 1961 births Living people 20th-century English theologians 20th-century English philosophers 21st-century English theologians 21st-century English philosophers Academics of King's College London Academics of the University of Edinburgh Christian ethicists Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Philosophers of religion