Robert Beckford

Robert Beckford (born 1965) is a British academic theologian and currently a professor in theology at Canterbury Christ Church University, whose documentaries for both the BBC and Channel 4 have caused debate among the Christian and British religious community.

Beckford was born to Jamaican parents in Northampton and was raised in a Pentecostal church. He states that his "white, middle-class" religious education teacher "turned me on in a big way to RE and sowed the seeds to think about religion and culture", while his Communist maths tutor introduced him to politics and the work of Malcolm X, who is still a hero.

After A levels, Beckford studied religion and sociology at Houghton College, New York. He then studied at the London Bible College, Middlesex. After a year in the community, Beckford studied for his PhD while also working part-time at Queen's College, Birmingham, where he became Britain's first tutor in black theology.

Professionally, Beckford has spent his career in academia, beginning in 1999 as a research fellow at Birmingham University, then becoming a lecturer in African Diasporan Religions & Cultures. For two years he was Reader in Black Theology and Popular Culture at Oxford Brookes University and then a visiting Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Robert Beckford is currently Professor of Theology and Culture in the African Diaspora at Canterbury Christ Church University.

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