Associate Chaplain - Tony Clark

Revd Dr Tony Clark is the Associate Chaplain and Head of the Chaplaincy’s Listening Service.

Tony joined the University Chaplaincy Team in February 2024 to lead the Listening Service. He is an ordained Anglican priest and has served in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the USA and, more recently, the Episcopal Church of Scotland. He has spent a large proportion of his career, to date, working in chaplaincy – particularly in schools and universities. Most recently he was the chaplain at Fettes College, an independent school in Edinburgh. He has also worked as an academic, completing a PhD in 2004 at the University of St Andrews. In his doctoral thesis he used the ideas of Hungarian scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi in a constructive critique of the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth.  He was a Teaching Fellow at the University of St Andrews from 2004-2006 after which he took up the position of Associate Professor at Friends University – a private Quaker school in Wichita, Kansas, USA, where he taught ethics, theology and philosophy. He also led the University’s Honours Program.

Tony Clark sitting down

In addition to his work as a chaplain, Tony continues to be actively involved in academic work and, not least, the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. His other interests include cycling, hill-walking, reading, cinema and spending time with his family.

Publications

Books

  • Divine Revelation and Human Practice: Responsive and Imaginative Participation (Cascade Books, 2008). Republished in the UK by James Clarke & Co., April 2010.

Book chapters

  • ‘Knowledge in Science and Religion: A Polanyian Perspective’ in Critical Conversations: Michael Polanyi and Christian Theology, edited by Murray A. Rae (Paternoster Press, 2012)
  • ‘Defining and Describing the Great Tradition: Authentic Participation in the Great Tradition’ in The Great Tradition-A Great Labor: Studies in Ancient-Future Faith, edited by D. H. Williams and Philip E. Harrold (Cascade Books, 2011)

Journal Articles

  • Doing and Knowing: Aspects of Spiritual Formation “Anvil” 24.4 2008
  • Polanyi on Epistemology, Worship and Theology (a contribution to a Symposium on Michael Polanyi) “The Political Science Reviewer” Vol. XXXVII August 2008
  • T. F. Torrance (1913-2007): A Life “Tradition and Discovery” Vol. 34 No. 2 February 2008.
  • Polanyi on Religion “Tradition and Discovery” Vol. 32 No. 3 February 2006

Polanyi among the Theologians “Appraisal” Vol. 5 No. 2 October 2004

Tony Clark

Associate Chaplain

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