John Hull

John Martin Hull was an Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham. He was the author of several books and many articles in the fields of religious education, practical theology, and disability. The latter interest arose from his experiences and personal and theological reflections on becoming blind in mid-career. 

He edited the British Journal of Religious Education for 25 years. He co-founded the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values, of which he was general secretary for 32 years and president emeritus at the time of his death. After retirement, he pursued a further interest as an Honorary Professor of Practical Theology at the Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, England.

After Cambridge and four years as head of religious education at a London grammar school, Hull moved to Birmingham to train religious education teachers, first at Westhill College, then at the University of Birmingham, which awarded him a Ph.D. in theology in 1969.

From 1971 to 1996, he was editor of the British Journal of Religious Education and remained a member of its UK editorial board until 2009. He served two terms as president of the National Christian Education Council. In 1978 he was the co-founder with John H. Peatling (US) of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values, by its 2012 session, an association of over 240 religious education scholars from 36 countries, which meets in a different country every other year. He was its general secretary from 1978 to 2010, when he was appointed president emeritus.

In 1989, Hull appointed a personal chair as a Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham, the first such in the United Kingdom. In 1990 he was also appointed dean of its Faculty of Education and Continuing Studies. In his time in Birmingham, he wrote many papers and contributed over 50 chapters to books.

Hull lectured on religious education or the consideration of disability in many countries. For example, in the three years after he became a professor emeritus at the University of Birmingham in 2002, he spoke at meetings in Canada, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Taiwan, and the United States, as well as at many events in England.

In 1992, Hull received the William Rainey Harper Award of the Religious Education Association of the United States and Canada for outstanding contributions to studying religion in society, especially religious education. A festschrift was commissioned to mark his 70th birthday: Education, Religion, and Society: Essays in Honour of John M. Hull (2005). Another book has been published as a tribute to "his exceptional academic achievements in the field of religious education": Religious Education as Encounter: A Tribute to John M. Hull (2009).

In 2006 the University of Cambridge awarded Hull the higher doctorate of Litt.D. in respect of his published works on religious education. His work has also been recognized internationally by the award of honorary doctorates of Hon.D.Theol. (Frankfort) and Dr.H.C. (Free University of Amsterdam).