Dr Patrick McGhee
Stipendiary Lecturer in Early Modern History
Christ Church
I am the Stipendiary Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Oxford, where I teach at Christ Church. I previously held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and an Honorary Research Fellowship at Durham University, having completed my doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge. My research has been published in the English Historical Review, Atlantic Studies, and the Journal of Early Modern History. I have edited a collection of essays entitled Rethinking Atheism in the Early Modern World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026), and my first monograph is entitled The Reformation of the Heathen: Theology, History, and Nature in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1500-1700 (Manchester University Press, 2026).
Research Interests
My research explores religious culture and politics in the early modern world, focusing on Protestantism in Britain, Ireland, and the Americas, c. 1500-1800. Within this framework, I have investigated Christian attitudes towards non-Christianity and heterodoxy, including perceptions of 'atheism' and 'heathen' peoples. I am currently developing a new project on 'civil religion' that will examine the changing relationship between church and state in trans-Atlantic contexts through the lens of 'divine government'.
Publications
The Reformation of the Heathen: Theology, History, and Nature in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1500-1700
(Manchester University Press, 2026)
A study of the Biblical ‘heathen’ idea in the religious culture of the Protestant Atlantic world, illuminating its role as a catalyst of reformation, colonisation and evangelism in early modern England, Ireland, Virginia and New England.