Religion, Theology & Spirituality and Psychology (with Foundation Year)

RELIGION, THEOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY

*This course is for 2025 entry only

*subject to validation

‘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.

PSYCHOLOGY

We provide a number of programmes of study in Psychology, our Single Honours programmes include BSc Psychology, BSc Sport Psychology and BSc Psychology in Education. Combined Honours programmes allow students to combine the core curriculum in Psychology with the core curriculum of many other subjects taught at Liverpool Hope (e.g, Psychology and Criminology, Psychology and Marketing: see the list below for the full range of Psychology Combined Honours courses). Giving our students different options is important to us, and providing a choice of studying Psychology alone or Psychology alongside over thirty other disciplines means students can choose to study Psychology in a way that matches their interests.

Ethical practice and working within a shared set of values is also important to us; our University is committed to serving the common good. We see Psychology as a discipline with the capacity; and responsibility; to make a positive contribution to how people live in everyday life. Through our teaching of Psychology, we strive to enable our students to grow into constructive citizens who are curious about people, and motivated to make a positive difference to the lives of others. Beyond classroom learning, there are opportunities to enrich your chosen programme of study in a way that will help you in developing your psychological thinking. They include going on a placement year, working as a research assistant in a laboratory, travelling to another country as part of Global Hope, or studying abroad.

Our enthusiasm for the discipline is reflected in our consistently high ratings of teaching quality. If our departmental narrative matches with what you aspire to be, then come and study with us at Liverpool Hope University.