STORY OF CHRIS MAUNDER

From 1988 until 2020 I worked as a senior lecturer in Theology & Religious Studies at York St John University, and served there as Head of Department, Head of B.A., and Head of M.A. Since completing a PhD at the University of Leeds in 1991, I have written and edited books and articles on the Virgin Mary. I was asked in the mid-1990s to edit a new volume of Henry Bettenson’s collection, Documents of the Christian Church (OUP, 1999, 2011). I am the editor of Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary (Continuum, 2008) and the Oxford Handbook of Mary (OUP, 2019). My single-authored books are Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th-Century Catholic Europe (2016, OUP) and Mary, Founder of Christianity (Oneworld, 2022).

 

Whilst being a scholar of Catholic popular religion in my professional life, I am also passionate about Marian shrines, visiting them across Europe and helping to maintain the 15th-century rock chapel in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, where I lived from 1995 to 2023.

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I am a believer in God but I can also be critical of religion at times and I am totally accepting of people who do not believe. I am also interested in new and alternative spiritualities. My passion is for a spirituality that is centred upon the inclusive, universal love and justice of God.

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In 2010 I self published my first novel Calling. This is a novel about 21st century alternative spirituality. Visions, divine guidance, magic, pilgrimage - all of these are ancient religious themes. What happens when they break into the life of a modern, urban, non-religious young woman? Calling's main character is drawn into a magical new world of intense encounters which inspire her. However, she also has to meet challenges, which represent a rite of passage for this late twenty-something into a greater maturity and stronger sense of her place in the universe.

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I married Natalie on the 15th August 2015, and she gave birth to our daughter Beatrice (Bea) on the 18th March 2022.

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