Joseph Forde

Joseph Forde is Honorary Research Fellow in Historical Theology at the Urban Theology Union, Sheffield. After working for 26 years in NHS management, he was awarded a PhD in Theology from the University of Manchester, having previously gained degrees in History from the universities of Lancaster (BA Hons) and Sheffield (MA), and in Human Resource Management (MA) from the University of Huddersfield. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Since taking early retirement in 2014, he has been chair of Sheffield’s Church Action on Poverty Group. He researches and writes about welfare and Christianity, and has a particular interest in the contribution that the British churches have made to welfare provision since the middle of the nineteenth century, including their influence on shaping government policy on welfare. He is the author of Before and Beyond the ‘Big Society’: John Milbank and the Church of England’s Approach to Welfare (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2022).