Religion, Theology & Spirituality and Media & Communication

RELIGION, THEOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY

‘If you want a cathedral, we’ve got one to spare!’ runs a traditional Liverpool song.  This city has been shaped by its religious past – it has seen over two centuries of religious riots, you'll find the oldest mosque in England here, and the landscape is dominated by two amazing cathedrals. Liverpool now is home to vibrant new religious communities from across the world. All that makes Liverpool Hope the perfect place to study the spirituality, wisdom, and mysticism of the major religious traditions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. But our city with its art and music scenes also tells us that the human quest for meaning and purpose goes beyond the traditional ‘religions.’ People today are often seeking a ‘spiritual’ identity – but not necessarily a ‘religious’ one.

Liverpool Hope is the perfect place to study all this. Our university is rooted in the attempts by Catholics and protestants to mend their differences in the city, and our teaching team is made up of people from many different cultures and christian traditions.  offers you the opportunity to look at the big questions that people ask today – bringing together both traditional religions and contemporary perspectives. You will gain insights into ancient wisdom, rituals, and sacred texts that influence millions today. Plus, you’ll actively participate in critical debates about human existence in a world facing numerous crises. You will tackle ethical and theological questions concerning the beginning and end of life, sexuality, gender, evil, suffering, and contemporary issues like radicalisation, ecology, violence, inter-religious dialogue, secularisation, post-secularism, health, wellbeing, and near-death experiences. You will examine how our beliefs about our place in the universe impact how we treat our planet and all life forms.

The city will be a constant backdrop to our studies. It is home today to new and changing religious traditions. We will visit and take a close look at places of worship – both the traditional and the strikingly new. And we will also explore the other ways that people find meaning, hope and community here – looking at the ways they actively create and use different types of ritual performance and expression to shape their spiritual identity. In this city, that of course includes art, music and football! 

People who study this programme will benefit from the experience of meeting people who make sense of their lives in very different ways. The course challenges its students to broaden the way they think of other people and their beliefs. So, it provides excellent professional grounding for the kinds of careers that involve understanding and working with people, especially in contexts where complex ethical decisions are needed – for example, in community planning and support, education, politics, and the civil service.

MEDIA & COMMUNICATION

Liverpool is a vibrant city of culture and a hub of media creativity and innovation, and is an ideal location to pursue your studies in Media and Communication. This is an exciting and important time to study Media and Communication, as the impact of the media on society has never been greater or changing at so rapid a pace.

At Liverpool Hope, we will support you in developing a deeper understanding of the media’s relationship to society, history, culture, power, and industry. The course will encourage you to look at digital and social media from new perspectives, analysing how they have disrupted traditional ways of communicating and interacting with the world around us. And it will challenge you to become an adaptable, independent, and professional communicator: someone who can develop original ideas and produce creative journalistic, digital and social media content to deliver on them.

The course is designed to help you become an industry leader who is equipped to take on the critical task of working towards a trustworthy, ethical media. You will gain advanced skills in professional journalistic, digital and social media communication across a variety of platforms, while also developing transferable skills in critical analysis and creative practice that will prepare you for a wide range of careers. Our curriculum is taught by tutors with international reputations for world leading research and who have industry experience in their own practice traditions, including journalism and digital and social media communication.