Dr. Christopher Duncanson-Hales

Christopher J. Duncanson-Hales is Director of Contextual Theology and Strategic Partnerships at Thorneloe University, where he leads the Wabash Center–funded project Teaching Life in Disruption. Working in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory and Northern Ontario, the directorship engages the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action on theological education through a two-eyed approach to Indigenous and settler traditions. A Roman Catholic lay theologian working in the hermeneutical tradition, his ongoing constructive scholarship in contextual and post-colonial theology brings Paul Ricœur’s productive imagination into conversation with Niklas Luhmann’s theory of functional differentiation. Caribbean religious thought — particularly Rastafari theology and the writings of Mortimo Planno — serves as the principal site through which that scholarship is tested and revised. He is preparing a critical edition of Planno’s The Earth Most Strangest Man, with related papers forthcoming for the Caribbean Studies Association (Kingston, June 2026) and the Fonds Ricœur Summer Seminar (Paris, June 2026). He lectures at the Jamaica Theological Seminary and Cambrian College, and holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from Saint Paul University and the University of Ottawa.