John Swinton

Consulting Faculty

John Swinton is a consulting faculty member at Duke Divinity and professor in practical theology and pastoral care and chair in divinity and religious studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. For more than a decade he worked as a registered mental health nurse. He also worked for a number of years as a hospital and community mental health chaplain alongside of people with severe mental health challenges who were moving from the hospital into the community. In 2004, he founded the University of Aberdeen’s Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability. He has published widely within the area of mental health, dementia, disability theology, spirituality and healthcare, end-of-life care, qualitative research, and pastoral care. Swinton is the author of a number of monographs including his recent book, Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of People With Mental Health Challenges (Eerdmans 2020), which won the Aldersgate book prize for interdisciplinary theological research, and his book Dementia: Living in the Memories of God, which won the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Ramsey Prize for excellence in theological writing. Swinton is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was recently elected as a fellow of the British Academy.