Biography
Hexham was born in Whitehaven,Cumberland,England. After leaving school at the age of fifteen he spent six years (1958–1964) as an apprentice gas fitter with the North Western Gas Board,and obtained his City and Guilds and advanced diplomas in Gas Technology. After the completion of his apprenticeship he was offered a management position with the Gas Board. During his industrial career he also served as a union representative.
Hexham qualified for university matriculation by correspondence study and entered the University of Lancaster in 1967 where he majored in religious studies with minors in history and philosophy. He graduated with honours with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970. He then proceeded to post-graduate studies,obtaining his MA "with commendation" in religious studies and theology from the University of Bristol in 1972. His MA was based on anthropological methods and theories and involved a short dissertation on Glastonbury. He obtained a PhD in history from the University of Bristol in 1975. His PhD thesis was on Afrikaner Calvinism and the origins of apartheid as an ideology. In the course of his studies he lived in the Republic of South Africa and studied the languages of German and Afrikaans. His MA supervisor was F. B. Welbourn;his PhD supervisor was Kenneth Ingham. When he was in South Africa Elaine Botha at Potchefstroom University was appointed his local supervisor by the University of Bristol.
Hexham is an evangelical Anglican.
Academic career
Hexham has held a number of posts in various tertiary institutions of higher learning. He was an assistant professor at Bishop Lonsdale College,University of Derby,England from 1974 to 1977. He also served as a course tutor in the Open University at Derby (1975–77). Hexham then relocated to Canada and assumed the post of assistant professor at Regent College,Vancouver (1977–80). He became an assistant professor in religious studies at the University of Manitoba,Winnipeg (1980–84),and then an assistant professor in religious studies at the University of Calgary (1984–88). He was promoted to the rank of associate professor at Calgary (1988–92),and in 1992 assumed the post of Full Professor in religious studies.
Hexham is a Fellow of both the Royal Anthropological Institute,and the Royal Historical Society has been a member of various professional organizations including the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion,American Academy of Religion,Association for the Sociology of Religion,South African Institute of Race Relations,South African Society for Mission Studies,and the Berliner Gesellschaft fuer Missionsgeschichte of which he was a founding member with Ulrich van der Heyden. Recently he was elected a Fellow of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
Hexham has lectured in undergraduate and post-graduate programs covering topics such as cults,sects and new religious movements,history of religion,sociology of religion,African history and religions,religion and society in South Africa,millenarian movements,theology and politics,Christianity and culture,missions and society,religion and ethics,fundamentalism and charismatic religion,methods in the study of religion,and the philosophy of religion.
His academic interests are listed as political religions;nationalism and religion;Afrikaner nationalism;Nazism;new religious movements;world religions in modern society;world Christianity and Christian missions,African initiated/independent churches;modern religious thought;while his research interests are said to be Ancestral neo-Paganism,the New Right,and political religions in Germany.
He served as a contributing editor to the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (1981–1993),and is on the Editorial Board of Studies in Religion.
Hexham has written or co-edited a number of works treating various facets of religion in South Africa including African independent churches,Afrikaner Calvinism,and Zulu religion. He has compiled reference works such as the Concise Dictionary of Religion and Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements. He has co-written two analytic works on the phenomenon of new religions and cults,and co-edited a pioneering work on the development of Christian contextual missions and new religious movements. Currently,as can be seen from his recent publications,Hexham is working on issues related to Germany.
Among his graduate students are Douglas E. Cowan of the University of Waterloo,Mark Mullins of Sophia University in Tokyo,and Kurt Widmar of the University of Lethbridge.
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