Welcome

Research areas

  • Emily Colgan and David Tombs, ‘Christianity: Accompanying Survivors of Sexual Harm: Responses, Activism, and Resistance to Sexual Harm within Christian Contexts’ in Johanna Stiebert (ed), Abuse in World Religions: Volume 2 Towards Solutions (London: Routledge, 2026), pp. 25-32. Open access.

    David Tombs, Sithembiso Zwane and Charlene van der Walt, ‘Male Violence Against Men: A Contextual Bible Study on the Crucifixion of Jesus’, in Jione Havea (ed) Haunting Questions of Liberation Theology (2025), Otago archive.

    Anglican Journal of Theology in Aotearoa and Oceania (2025) special issue on ‘Trauma, Abuse, and Healing’ Otago archive.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Vendo Sua Inocência, Eu Vejo Minha Inocência’, Estudos Teológicos (2024). Open access (Brazilian Portuguese); Open access (English). Otago archive (English original 2021).

    David Tombs, ‘Don’t look away: damning report demands our attention’, The Post (25 July 2024). Online.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, '¿Obedecer el plan de Dios? El abuso espiritual de las religiosas’, (2024). Open access.

    David Tombs, 'Redress', (2024). Otago archive.

    Rocío Figueroa, Aton Hungyo, and David Tombs, ‘If people in the church knew': Purity, Stigma and Victim-Blaming', (2023). Otago archive.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Discipline, Obedience and Abuse in the Sodalitium', (2023). More info.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Obeying God’s Plan? The Spiritual Abuse of Nuns’, (2023). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa y David Tombs, “El abuso espiritual de religiosas. Caso de estudio: Siervas del Plan de Dios”, Teología y vida (2022). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Living in Obedience and Suffering in Silence: The Shattered Faith of Nuns Abused by Priests’, (2022). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, 'Asking the Right Questions' in Jione Havea, Emily Colgan and Nasili Vaka’uta (eds) Theology as Threshold: Invitations from Aotearoa New Zealand (2022). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘The Ten Concubines in 2 Samuel 15-20 and Secondary Victimisation’ in Emily Colgan and Caroline Blyth (eds), Accompanying Survivors of Sexual Harm: A Toolkit for the Churches (2022), pp. 41-45. Open access.

    David Tombs, ‘The Stripping of Jesus (Matthew 27:26-31)’ in Emily Colgan and Caroline Blyth (eds), Accompanying Survivors of Sexual Harm: A Toolkit for the Churches (2022), pp. 46-51. Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence’, (2021). Open access.

    Jayme R. Reaves, David Tombs and Rocío Figueroa (eds), When Did We See You Naked?’: Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse (2021). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Viendo su Inocencia veo mi Inocencia’, (2021). Otago archive.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Recognising Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse. Responses from Sodalicio Survivors in Peru’, (2020). Open access.

    Jayme Reaves and David Tombs, '#Me Too: Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse', Review and Expositor (2020). Open access.

    Jayme R. Reaves and David Tombs, ‘#MeToo Jesus: Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse’,International Journal of Public Theology (2019). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, 'Listening to Male Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse', The Canonist (2017). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Abandonment, Rape, And Second Abandonment: Hannah Baker In 13 Reasons Why and King David’s Concubines In 2 Samuel 15–20’, Shiloh Project Blog (2017). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, Listening to Male survivors of Church Sexual Abuse: Voices of Sodalicio Survivors in Peru (2016). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, Escuchando a sobrevivientes masculinos de abuso sexual en la Iglesia: Voces de sobrevivientes de abusos del Sodalicio en el Perú (2016). Open access.

    David Tombs, ‘Silent No More: Sexual Violence in Conflict as a Challenge to the Worldwide Church’, Acta Theologica (2014). Open access.

  • David Tombs, Sithembiso Zwane and Charlene van der Walt, ‘Male Violence Against Men: A Contextual Bible Study on the Crucifixion of Jesus’, in Jione Havea (ed) Haunting Questions of Liberation Theology (2025), Otago archive.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Vendo Sua Inocência, Eu Vejo Minha Inocência’, Estudos Teológicos (2024). Open access (Brazilian Portuguese); Open access (English). Otago archive (English original 2021).

    David Tombs, ‘Things Too Indecent to be Recorded: The Soldiers Mocking the Death of Herod Agrippa’, in Juliana Claassens. Rhiannon Graybill and Christl Maier (eds), Narrating Rape: Shifting Perspectives in Biblical Literature and Popular Culture (2024). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, 'Art depicts Jesus in a loincloth on the cross – the brutal truth is he would have been naked’, The Conversation (28 March 2024). Open access.

    David Tombs, ‘Alone and Naked: Reading the Torture of Jesus alongside the Torture of Miriam Leitão’, International Journal of Public Theology (2023). Open access.

    David Tombs, The Crucifixion of Jesus: Torture, Sexual Abuse, and the Scandal of the Cross (Routledge, 2023). Open access.

    David Tombs, 'The Pink Crosses of Ciudad Juárez' in Rebekah Pryor and Stephen Bevans (eds) Feminist Theologies: Interstices and Fractures (2023). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Reading Crucifixion Narratives as Texts of Terror’ in Monica Melanchthon and Robyn Whitaker (eds.) Terror in the Bible: Rhetoric, Gender, and Violence (SBL 2021), Open access.

    Jayme R. Reaves, David Tombs and Rocío Figueroa (eds), When Did We See You Naked?’: Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse (2021). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence’, (2021). Open access.

    Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, ‘Viendo su Inocencia veo mi Inocencia’, (2021). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight: Seeing the Stripping of Jesus as Sexual Violence’, Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (2020). Open access.

    David Tombs, ‘Unspeakable Things: Drawing upon the Nanjing Massacre to Read Crucifixion as an Assault on Human Dignity’ in Zhibin Xie et al. (2020). More info.

    ‘Recognising Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse. Responses from Sodalicio Survivors in Peru’, (2020). Open access.

    Jayme Reaves and David Tombs, '#Me Too: Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse', Review and Expositor (2020). Open access.

    Jayme R. Reaves and David Tombs, ‘#MeToo Jesus: Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse’, International Journal of Public Theology (2019). Open access.

    David Tombs, Crucifixion and Sexual Abuse (2019). Otago archive English, Spanish, French, German.

    David Tombs, 'Crucificação e abuso sexual' (2019). Open access(Brazilian Portuguese).

    Edwards and Tombs, ‘#HimToo – why Jesus should be recognised as a victim of sexual violence’, The Conversation (2018). Open access.

    David Tombs, ‘Prisoner Abuse: From Abu Ghraib to The Passion of The Christ’ (2009). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse’, (Union Seminary Quarterly Review (1999). Open access. 

  • David Tombs, 'Siphiwo Mthimkhulu, Daniel Grootboom and the Art of Forgiveness' (Fortress Academic 2018). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Public Theology and Reconciliation’ (Brill 2017). Open access.

    David Tombs, 'Towards a Public Theology of Reconciliation in Northern Ireland' (EOS 2015). Otago archive .

    David Tombs, 'Archbishop Romero and Reconciliation in El Salvador’ (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012). More info.

    David Tombs, ‘The Meaning of Reconciliation’ (Corrymeela 2012). Corrymeela site.

    David Tombs, 'Unspeakable Violence: The UN Truth Commissions in El Salvador and Guatemala' (Ashgate 2006). Open access.

    David Tombs and Joseph Liechty, Explorations in Reconciliation: New Directions in Theology (Ashgate 2006). Open access.

    David Tombs, David Tombs, ‘The Theology of Reconciliation and the “Recovery of Memory Project” in Guatemala’ (Ashgate 2006). Open access.

  • David Tombs, Sithembiso Zwane and Charlene van der Walt, ‘Male Violence Against Men: A Contextual Bible Study on the Crucifixion of Jesus’, in Jione Havea (ed) Haunting Questions of Liberation Theology (2025), Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Gustavo Gutiérrez and A Theology of Liberation’ (29 Oct. 2024). SCM Blog.

    Rebecca Chopp, Ethna Regan and David Tombs, ‘Latin American Liberation Theology’ (Wiley 2024). More info.

    David Tombs, 'Latin American Liberation Theology' (Peter Lang, 2009). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Jon Sobrino and “The Crucified People’, Religions (2023). Open access.

    David Tombs, Latin American Liberation Theology (Brill 2002). Open access.

    Michael A. Hayes and David Tombs, Truth and Memory: The Church and Human Rights in El Salvador and Guatemala (Gracewing, 2001). More info.

    David Tombs, ‘Latin American Liberation Theology Faces the Future’ (2001). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Oscar Romero and Resurrection Hope’ (1999). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Machismo and Marianismo: Sexuality and Liberation Theology’ (1998). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, ‘Liberating Christology: Images of Christ in the Work of Aloysius Pieris’ (1997). Otago archive.

    David Tombs, 'The Hermeneutics of Liberation' (1995). Otago archive

Now available as open access

“This remarkable collection of essays is a tribute to an idea whose time has come.”
— Prof. Linda Woodhead, King's College London, UK
“a new conversation on the crucified Jesus—a political prisoner sentenced to death by the powers that be and subjected to sexual abuse....”
— Prof. Fernando F. Segovia, Vanderbilt Divinity School, USA
“The book focuses unflinchingly on a distressing detail present in the biblical text ... It calls this what it is: sexual abuse…”
— Prof. Johanna Stiebert, University of Leeds, UK
“an important group of scholars who have noticed something that we should all pay attention to.”
— Prof. John Swinton, University of Aberdeen, UK

About me

I am a lay Anglican theologian, originally from the United Kingdom, and I serve as the Howard Paterson Chair Professor of Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand. I work on contextual approaches to public theology, including liberation theologies and theologies of reconciliation. I am probably best known for my research on crucifixion as a form of torture, an instrument of state terror, and an opportunity for punitive sexualised abuse. I also write on how churches can make better responses to sexual and spiritual abuses. More about me.