James Orr | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Tristan Ward Orr 1978 (age 46–47) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Philosophy |
| Sub-discipline | Philosophy of Religion |
| Institutions | |
James Tristan Ward Orr (born November 1978) is a British [1] academic and philosopher. He is currently an associate professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Formerly,he spent four years as a McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology,Ethics,and Public Life at Christ Church,Oxford. [2]
He is also a national conservative commentator and has been described by JD Vance as his "British sherpa". [3] [4] [5] [6] He has written for many publications on the themes of Christianity,academic freedom and the Trump/Vance administration. [7] [8] In March 2025 he was interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 Today podcast. [9]
He is UK Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation,which aims to strengthen the principles of national conservatism, [10] and a member of the advisory council of the Free Speech Union. [11] He co-runs the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation. [12]
Orr was educated at Winchester College,where he was a near-contemporary of Rishi Sunak. After studying Classics at Balliol College,Oxford,Orr became a corporate lawyer first at Freshfields,then Sullivan &Cromwell,in London. Thereafter,he returned to academia to take an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. [13]
Orr has been involved with a debate around free speech at the University of Cambridge. In 2020 he was one of those behind an amendment to the University's Statement on Freedom of Speech,seeking to replace the word “respect”for the opinions of others with “tolerance”. [14] He has argued that universities need to be "decolonized" from a "new form of soft imperialism,an ideology that is dividing us from each other,politicizing our culture,and eroding our freedoms." [15]