Revd Dr Joshua Cockayne

Josh is the Academic Dean at Cranmer, overseeing the academic programmes and working with the Programme Directors to develop the teaching and learning of the college. Josh is co-director of the field-leading Doctorate in Theology and Ministry, which is run in partnership with the Department of Theology and Religion.  

As Academic Dean, Josh also leads the research life of the college, and he is passionate about seeing theological research serving the life of the church. He is the Director of the Bede Centre for Church Planting Theology, one of our two research centres at Cranmer. The Bede Centre focuses on encouraging an in-depth theological conversation around the starting of new churches and seeks to produce research which can equip the church for mission.  

 Josh is a proud Yorkshireman; growing up in Sheffield (up the Owls!), and spending nearly a decade in York, where he wrote his PhD on Christian spirituality and the Danish theologian, Søren Kierkegaard. Josh then spent four years teaching and researching at the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, where his research focused on liturgy and ecclesiology. He came to Cranmer in 2023 to teach mission and became Academic Dean in 2025.  

Josh has written a number of books, including: 

• Contemporary with Christ, which focuses on Kierkegaard’s understanding of spirituality and our knowledge of God;  

• Dawn of Sunday (with Scott Harrower and Preston Hill), which considers how the church might respond to issues of trauma and abuse;  

• Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology, in which he gives a philosophically informed account of the church’s unity in Christ, and  

• Why We Gather (with Gideon Salter), which explores how psychology and theology can help us to understand the nature of gathering for worship.   

He has also published edited book volumes on church planting, spirituality, and philosophical theology and published in a number of academic journals.  

Josh was ordained in the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2020 and has served in a variety of ministry contexts. Before he was ordained, he spent many years on the leadership team of G2 York, a large fresh expression, from which he led a small church plant in 2016-17. After serving a part time curacy in St Andrews, he spent 2 years leading Holy Trinity Boar Lane, a church plant in the city centre of Leeds which was started to engage with the working population of the city through midweek mission and worship. 

Josh is married to Eleanor, and they have 3 young children. He can often be found trying to make the perfect cup of coffee. 

To find out more about Joshua’s academic work and publications, visit https://joshuacockayne.weebly.com/