A Doctor of Divinity

Professor Sue Gillingham recently became the first British woman to become a Doctor of Divinity.

Sue, a Licensed Lay Minister at St Barnabas Church in Oxford, took time out from her latest project on the Psalms to tell Jo Duckles her story. Sue was brought up in a Christian Scientist family in Bradford, and it was when her father was excluded from the church for having treatment for heart problems and diabetes that she began asking theological questions. She as at Bradford Girls' Grammar School, but was unable to take any examination papers in R. E. After his death in 1962 she became involved with an evangelical church called St Peter's in Shipley.

Professor Sue Gillingham It was a chance meeting, in Southport in 1969, at her grandmother's funeral, that led her to apply to St John's, Nottingham to study Theology.

This was when the college was still in Northwood and she was one woman among almost 90 men.

In 1970 the college moved and more women joined: as well as taking degrees they were treated as if they were going through ordination training, preparing sermons and doing pastoral placements.

This training became useful when Sue became a Licensed Lay Minister in Oxford in the 1980s. In 1973 Sue moved to Plymouth where she became a teacher and studied part time for an MA at Exeter University.

She was examined by a Professor from Oxford, who encouraged her to apply for a doctorate.

Sue completed her doctorate on the Psalms and her career then led to several stipendiary lectureships in Oxford Colleges and in 1994, she successfully applied for a University Lectureship in Old Testament and Tutorial Fellowship at Worcester College. Throughout the 1980s and 90s Sue became involved with Burford Priory, teaching the Psalms to a Benedictine community of Anglican monks and nuns; this, and worshipping and preaching in various college chapels, drew her increasingly towards a more reflective high church tradition.

Her work involves studying how the Psalms have been interpreted in Jewish and Christian traditions and re-interpreted up to the present day.

"I am looking not only at commentaries, sermons, and different translations, but also at how the Psalms have been used in liturgy, in illuminated manuscripts, in other art-works, in poetry, and in music," she says. Sue's books have included The Psalms Through the Centuries, published in 2008 and two years ago, A Journey of Two Psalms.

Her current project is looking at 2,500 years' worth of the reception history of all 150 Psalms.

"It's not just an intellectual engagement, it is an imaginative, intuitive and emotional one as well", she says. Her Doctor of Divinity degree was awarded in a ceremony at Oxford University's Sheldonian Theatre last year.

"I was the only one taking a D. D so I had to walk back in on my own, wearing the superb red and black DD robes: it was a memorable experience. "Only 76 people have received the Doctor of Divinity degree the highest degree in Oxford University, awarded for distinction in publications in theology: 74 have been men.

For more, see the Oxford University website.

"There have been surprising ways whereby my life has taken this path, rather than me chasing after this," says Sue.

"When I look back there are many things I would never have expected. "