Theology is an ancient intellectual discipline with continuing and momentous social significance around the world today. Students gain an understanding of the intellectual underpinning of religious traditions, and of the social and cultural contexts for religious belief and practice. Oxford has been at the very heart of religious debate, reform and turmoil in the British Isles for eight centuries so that the faculty here wears a mantle of history not available in most other universities. At the same time Theology and Religion at Oxford is embracing wholeheartedly the challenges of the 21st century with the opportunity to study all the major world religions and their primary languages. Students can also explore the relationship between religion and science, and the place of religious ethics in public life.