Building Bridges Seminar

Dr. Jonathan Chaplin is a specialist in Christian political theology and a fellow of Wesley House, Cambridge Theological Federation, where he works with the Centre for Faith in Public Life. From 2006 to 2017, he was director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics in Cambridge, and from 1999 to 2006 he was associate professor of political theory at the Institute of Christian Studies (ICS) in Toronto. He held the Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy at ICS from 2004 to 2006 and was visiting lecturer in Christian social and political thought at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 2007 to 2011. He is a research fellow of the Canadian Christian think-tank Cardus. He is author of Beyond Establishment: Resetting Church-State Relations in England (2022), Faith in Democracy: Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity (2021), and Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society (2011). He has edited or co-edited nine other works and published many articles and book chapters in the field.

Rev. Daniel Madigan, S.J., is the Matteo Ricci Professor of Interreligious Theology and director of the Loyola Institute at Australian Catholic University. He is also rector of Newman College at the University of Melbourne. From 2008 to 2021 he was the Jeanette W. and Otto J. Ruesch Family Associate Professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies; he continues to be a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and associate professor emeritus at Georgetown. He has been involved with the annual Building Bridges Seminar since 2003 and in 2012 was appointed chair. His interests include Qur’anic studies, interreligious dialogue, and comparative theology, with a special focus on Muslim-Christian relations. Madigan previously taught in Rome (2000-2007), where he was the founder and director of the Pontifical Gregorian University's Institute for the Study of Religions and Cultures. He is the author of The Qur’an’s Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture (2001) and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an (2022). Madigan holds a B.A. from Monash University, B.D. from Melbourne College of Divinity, and M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Dr. Mahan Mirza is a teaching professor in the Keough School of Global Affairs and executive director of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame. An Islamic studies scholar, Mirza previously led the implementation for Madrasa Discourses, a project to advance scientific and theological literacy in South Asia, housed in the Keough School's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He also served as dean of faculty at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, America’s first accredited Muslim liberal arts college. Mirza holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from University of Texas Austin, M.A. from Hartford International University in Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations, and Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University. He has taught a range of courses in Arabic-Islamic studies, Western religions, history of science, and global affairs, along with foundational subjects in the liberal arts including logic, rhetoric, ethics, and politics.