Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies

Education and qualification

• 2024: habilitation

• 2009–2011: St Edmund’s College, The University of Cambridge (M.St. in Jewish-Christian relations)

• 2005–2009: Protestant Theological Faculty, Charles University, Prague (Ph.D., thesis: “Myths of Modern People”)

• 2000–2005: Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty, Comenius University, Bratislava (Master’s degree [Mgr.] in Evangelical Lutheran Theology)

Long-term study and research stays abroad

• 2013: Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) of the World Council of Churches, Seoul and Busan, South Korea (student participant)

• 2013: Summer Tutorial Program, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL (research program)

• 2007–2008: Karls Universität, Heidelberg (2 semesters; Erasmus)

Grants and projects

• Research grant project "The Misuse of Religion in Post-Communist Countries and Building Resilience" (2022-2025); team member (projekt leader: Prof. PhDr. Tomáš Halík, Th.D.)

• Research project supported by the John Templeton Foundation no. 61385 “Faith and Beliefs of ‘Nonbelievers’” (2019–2024); core team member, project manager (project leader: Prof. Tomáš Halík)

• Research project, Charles University Research Center program no. 204052 “Theological Anthropology in Ecumenical Perspective” (2018–2023); team member (project leader: Prof. Ivana Noble)

• Research project supported by the Czech Science Foundation no. 17-00987S “Transformations of Tradition: Implications for Contemporary Ecumenical Theology” (2017–2019); team member (project leader: Dr Zdenko Š Širka)

• Research project supported by the John Templeton Foundation no. 58599 “The Future of Religious Faith from Central Eastern European Perspective“ (2017); core team member, Slovak research team coordinator (project leader: Prof. Tomáš Halík)

• Research project supported by the Czech Science Foundation no. P401/14-22950P “Myth as a Means of Expression of Narrative Theology” (2014–2016); project leader

Membership in professional societies

• International Association for Mission Studies

• Central and Eastern European Association for Mission Studies

Membership in journal editorial boards

• Acta Missiologiae

• Acta Missiologica

• Dingir

• Exchange

• Křesťanská revue

• Revue Společnosti křesťanů a Židů

Service in professional societies and organizations

• Central and Eastern European Association for Mission Studies, vice-president

• International Council of Christians and Jews, second vice-president (2017–2021), executive board member (2014–2017, 2021–2024)

• Společnost křesťanů a Židů, executive board member

Other activities

• 2018–: Ph.D. program supervisor, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (accredited by Middlesex University)

• 2017: Global Ecumenical Theological Institute – Europe (GETI´17), organization committee and faculty member

• 2011–2013: M.Th. in Missiology, tutor in a MA program in theology (accredited by the University of South Africa)

• Peer-reviewer for various journals and publishers

• Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, lay preacher

Select Bibliography

Publishing and other professional activities registered in databaze OBD.

Full bibliography here.

Books:

• Pavol Bargár. Embodied Existence: Our Common Life in God. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023. Pp. 182. ISBN: 978-1-6667-4408-8.

• Pavol Bargár. Narrative, Myth, Transformation: Reflecting Theologically on Contemporary Culture. Jihlava: Mlýn, 2016. Pp. 196. ISBN 9-788086-498607

Edited volumes:

• Pavol Bargár, ed. The Bible, Christianity, and Culture: Essays in Honor of Professor Petr Pokorný. Prague: Karolinum Press, 2023. Pp. 375. ISBN: 978-80-246-5407-2.

• Zuzana Jurechová and Pavol Bargár, eds. Crisis Situations in the Czecho-Slovak Context after 1989. Prague: CECMS 2011, ISBN 978-80-903986-5-8.

• Zuzana Jurechová a Pavol Bargár, eds. Krizové situace v česko-slovenském kontextu po roce 1989. Praha: SCMS 2011, ISBN 978-80-903986-4-1.

Peer-reviewed articles and chapters:

• “Nigerian Initiated Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches in the Czech Republic: Active Missionary Force or a Cultural Ghetto?,” Exchange – Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context 43, no. 1 (2014): 48–67. Reprint: in Martha Frederiks and Dorottya Nagy (eds.), Religion, Migration, and Identity: Methodological and Theological Explorations (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2016), 79–96.

• “Mission in New Contexts: Post-Communist Europe in Dialogue with Together towards Life,” The Ecumenical Review 66, no. 1 (March 2014): 72–81.

• “Niebuhr’s Typology Reconsidered: Reading Christ and Culture through the Lenses of the Praxis Matrix,” Communio Viatorum 56, no. 3 (2014): 294–316.

• “‘Blessed Are You Who Are Poor:’ The Poor in Together towards Life, The Cape Town Commitment, and Evangelii Gaudium,” International Review of Mission 104, no. 2 (November 2015): 242–254.

• “Mission in the Czech Republic: An Ecumenical Perspective,” In Corneliu Constantineanu, Marcel V. Măcelaru, Anne-Marie Kool, and Mihai Himcinschi (eds.), Mission in Central and Eastern Europe: Realities, Perspectives, Trends (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2016), 270–291.

• “The Current Discourse on Refugees in Europe in Light of the Sacred: A Czech Case. A Cultural Sociological Approach in Dialogue with a Missiological Perspective,” Acta Missiologiae 5 (2017): 15–24.

• “Pondering ‘The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World:’ A Protestant Missiological Reflection,” International Review of Mission 106, no. 2 (December 2017): 389–399.

• “‘Break On Through To The Other Side:’ The Symbols of Creation and Resurrection/Salvation in Jim Morrison. Theological Explorations,” Testimonia Theologica 11, no. 2 (2017): 136–148.

• “Narrativity as a Locus Hermeneuticus for Ecumenical Theology: Culture, Koinonia and Transformation,” Transformation 35, no. 1 (2018): 30–43.

• “David Bowie’s and David Ford’s Ideas on Salvation,” Communio Viatorum 59, no. 3 (2017): 329–348.

• “Church, Society, and Earth in The Church and Together towards Life: A Reflection from a Post-communist Context,” The Ecumenical Review 70, no. 3 (2018): 443–454.

• “Ekonomika života: Ekumenický koncept zo stredourópskej perspektívy,” Teologická reflexe 24, no. 2 (2018): 189–202.

• “The Reformation from the Perspective of World Christianity,” AUC Theologica 8, no. 2 (2018): 67–89.

• “‘I Felt It… It Was Perfect:’ Apollo, Dionysus, Christ, and Black Swan,” Communio Viatorum 60, no. 3 (2018): 313–333.

• “The Role of the Imagination in Theology,” In Poetry and Theology, ed. Maroš Nicák (Jihlava: Mlýn, 2018), 213–229.

• “Mission amidst Ideologies: Ideology and Hegemony in The Cape Town Commitment, Together towards Life, Evangelii Gaudium, and Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World,” Exchange – Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context 48, no. 2 (2019): 85–104.

• “Destructive Pursuits of Holiness in Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!,” Acta Missiologica 13, no. 1 (2019): 70–76.

• “Christian Identity in a Pluralistic Society: Culture, Power, Witness,” In Identitäre Versuchungen: Identitätsverhandlungen zwischen Emanzipation und Herrschaft, ed. Judith Gruber, Sebastian Pittl, Stefan Silber, and Christian Tauchner, Concordia Reihe Monographien – Band 73 (Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2019), 265–274.

• “Learning about Spirituality Together with ‘Seekers:’ Reading Together towards Life in the Czech Postsecular Context,” International Review of Mission 108, no. 2 (2019): 326–336.

• “Človek na ceste za Pravdou: teologická antropológia Milana Balabána,” Teologická reflexe 25, no. 1 (2019): 58–72.

• “‘Together Towards a Banquet:’ The Feast as Promise and Resistance in Together towards Life and Contemporary Theological Discourse,” International Review of Mission 109, no. 1 (May 2020): 99–111.

• “Relating to Others: The Coronavirus, the Imagined Body, and Enfleshment,” Communio Viatorum 62, no. 1 (2020): 46–66.

• “The Modern, the Postmodern, and… the Metamodern? Reflections on a Transforming Sensibility from the Perspective of Theological Anthropology,” Transformation 38, no. 1 (2021): 3–15.

• (together with Pavel Hošek) “Lidé žijící v příbězích,” In Kdo je člověk? Teologická antropologie ekumenicky, ed. Ivana Noble a Zdenko Širka (Praha: Karolinum, 2021), 71–88.

• “The Phenomenon of ‘F-Word Pseudoreligion’ as a Challenge in Mission in Central and Eastern Europe,” Acta Missiologiae 9 (2021): 37–50.

• “‘Imagine!’: Culture, Theology, and the Power of Imagination,” Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 164–77.

• “Toward Comm/unity amid Brokenness: Christian Mission as (a Pursuit of) Relational Anthropology,” International Review of Mission 110, no. 2 (Nov 2021): 231–45.

• “Pursuing Shalom in the City: A Theological Reflection on the Beautiful and the Good in Urban Settings,” Acta Missiologica 16, no. 1 (May 2022): 236–49.

• “Christian Mission and Communism: A Protestant Perspective from Former Czechoslovakia.” In The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, ed. Kirsteen Kim, Knud Jørgensen, and Alison Fitchett-Climenhaga (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 365–82.

• “And Beauty Will Make You Free: On the Transformative Power of Beauty.” AUC Theologica 12, no. 2 (2022): 41–56.

• “Christianity, Culture, and Transformation: A Theological Reflection.” In The Bible, Christianity, and Culture: Essays in Honor of Professor Petr Pokorný, ed. Pavol Bargár (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2023), 303–319.