Oxford Theology and Religion Interview Questions and Mock Interviews

A traveller's notebook, written for this question, describes a mountain village. 'At dusk every household sets a bowl of food outside its door. By morning the bowls are empty. The villagers say the dead have eaten, yet they also remark, with a shrug, that the foxes have been bold this year. Nobody seems troubled by this, and nobody watches the bowls.' How would you describe what the villagers are doing without first deciding whether they are right? What might you be assuming if you wrote that they 'believe' the dead eat the food?

People sometimes say that a sacred text should be read 'literally'. Take, for example, a tale in which a mountain is said to speak to a farmer. Argue either that 'literal reading' is a clear and useful idea, or that it is a confusing one. What would someone on the other side say in reply?

Some communities hold that their founding text loses something essential whenever it is translated, so that it can only be fully understood in the language it was first written in. Argue for or against that claim. Then say what it would mean for readers who meet the text only in translation.

One way of studying several traditions is to compare them under shared headings such as prayer, sacrifice, holy places or sacred writing. Another is to study each tradition on its own terms and to compare only afterwards, if at all. Which approach do you find more convincing, and what could go wrong with each?

Who has the right to say what a founding text means: the leaders of the community that treasures it, scholars who study its history, each reader for themselves, or some mixture of these? Defend an answer, then give the strongest objection to it and say how you would respond.

Some people argue that the amount of suffering in the world is evidence against the existence of a creator who is both all-powerful and entirely good. Set out that argument as strongly as you can, then give the best reply you know of or can devise. Does the reply fully answer the argument? Whichever way you lean, what would you need to be shown in order to change your mind?

Some say that if a religious community changes a central teaching it is no longer faithful to its origins. Others say that staying alive means changing. Defend one of these views. How would you tell the difference between a community that has grown and one that has left its roots?

Imagine that excavators uncover a house in a long-vanished town. Beneath the floor of one room they find a row of small clay figures, each with a hole through the top of its head and each wrapped in a scrap of woven cloth. A visitor to the site declares: 'This household worshipped its ancestors.' What other explanations could there be? What further finds, or what evidence from outside the house, would make you more or less confident in the visitor's claim?

A scholar has two hand-copied versions of the same short religious text, made some generations apart, and neither copy carries a date. The longer version reads smoothly and explains a few difficult phrases. The shorter version is rougher and leaves those phrases unexplained. Which version is more likely to be closer to the original, and what reasoning leads you there? What other evidence would you look for before feeling sure?

A town keeps records of its weekly shrine gathering across several generations. They show that attendance has fallen steadily, while gifts toward the upkeep of the shrine have grown over the same period. A columnist writes that this proves religion in the town is dying. What do the records show, and what do they leave open? What other evidence would you want before agreeing or disagreeing?

A chronicle from a distant time says that a spring appeared overnight in a dry valley and that sick people who drank from it recovered. A modern historian is asked to write about this entry. What can a historian reasonably try to establish about it, and what lies beyond what historical method can settle? How might two historians who disagree about whether anything extraordinary happened still agree on a good deal?

Two communities that live far apart tell stories in which a long drought ends when a young hero climbs a mountain and wakes a sleeping giant who has been holding back the rain. A reader suggests that one community must have borrowed the story from the other. What other explanations are there for the likeness? What evidence would help you choose between them, and what would count against borrowing?

Suppose that cheap, quick copying of whole books had become possible many centuries before it actually did, so that any village could own a copy of its community's scriptures. Using what you know, or can reasonably infer, about how teachings spread by memory and by hand-copying, how might religious movements have developed differently? What might have stayed the same?

Imagine a tradition that never developed full-time specialists, with no priests, ministers or scholars set apart, so that every ritual and every act of teaching was done by ordinary members in their spare time. What difference would you expect that to make to how the tradition settled disagreements, taught children and preserved its texts? Use examples you know, or imagined ones, to support your answer.

Suppose that no ruler or government in history had ever given special support to a religion, whether through money, law or favoured treatment. How do you think the spread of the religions we know today would have been different? Use examples you know, or imagined ones, from places where a faith did, or did not, have the backing of the state.

Suppose that every member of a community came to accept strong evidence that a historical event at the centre of their founding story had not happened as it is told. What do you think might happen to their rituals, their moral teaching and their sense of belonging? Why might different members respond very differently?

Think of a text, from any tradition, that you found hard to understand. What made it hard? What did you do to make progress with it, and what would you do differently now?

Think of a ritual, a festival or a building connected with a belief that you have seen, read about or visited. What did you notice that you could not explain at first, and how did you, or how might you, go about finding an explanation?

Think of a time when learning about a belief or practice surprised you because it was not what you expected. Where had your expectation come from, and what did the surprise teach you about studying something unfamiliar?

Think about the argument of an essay or longer piece of writing that you have done in any subject. Which claim in it would a sceptical reader challenge first? How would you defend that claim, and would you change anything now?

In a town where most people keep the same weekly day of rest for religious reasons, a law closes all shops on that day. A shopkeeper from a different tradition, who keeps a different day, says the law makes her lose a day's trade every week. How should a fair society weigh the wishes of the majority, the shopkeeper's loss and the value of a shared day of rest? Is there a way to think about this that does not depend on whether the majority's religion is true?

A teacher in a state school is asked to teach a class about several religions. The teacher holds strong views, religious or not. What responsibilities does the teacher have towards pupils from many different backgrounds? Is it possible to teach about a religion fairly without saying whether it is true, and should a teacher ever say what they think?

A museum holds a ceremonial mask. Descendants of its makers say it was never meant to be seen by outsiders and ask for it to be returned and kept hidden. The museum's scholars say that showing it helps many visitors understand a way of life. How should the competing claims be weighed? What would you want to know before deciding?

A charity run by members of one religious group gives hot meals to anyone who comes. Before each meal a short prayer is said aloud. Some of the guests belong to other faiths and some to none. Is it fair to say the prayer where everyone can hear it? What does the charity owe its guests, and what, if anything, do the guests owe the charity?