Posters are a very common form of research dissemination at scientific conferences. For those embarking on doctorates or working in academia within scientific disciplines the expectations of presenting a poster either at one’s institution or while attending a conference is common practice. In theology however, it is unheard of. A burgeoning academic within theology would traditionally present their research often by way of a scripted talk, as if they are reading a journal article they have written in the hope of submission: no figures or tables, no images or graphics, certainly no eye-catching colour schemes. For those listening to the paper, it requires skill to follow something that almost certainly should be read rather than received verbally/auditorily, in the hope of comprehension and to offer feedback to the person presenting. I (Alison) remember in my early days of attending theology conferences of being utterly lost within the first few minutes of someone presenting a paper, desperately trying to grasp the flow of someone’s complex argument while subtly trying to google a key word that their argument rested upon. It is only very recently that the use of PowerPoint has become more commonplace when presenting theological research at conferences, while many still chose not to.
As part of our fellowship with the cross-training programme each fellow was asked to present their science-engaged theology projects as a poster at the Capstone Event in August 2025, with some also presenting their posters again at the International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR) conference also held at the University of Birmingham.
Below are some reflections in turn on creating and presenting posters as theologians this past year, followed by our collective thoughts on the possible benefits of posters for theology.
Rebecca’s Experience
Creating a Poster
The key elements of an academic poster are visual clarity, interest and brevity. That is really, really unfortunate for someone like me. I did not gravitate to the humanities by accident. I am naturally verbose, relishing complexity, overlapping nuances and involved arguments, and I always write at much greater length than required (so brace yourself if you are reading this!). I am also an emphatically non-visual person, by which I don’t just mean that I wear glasses and am lost without them. I either don’t notice or struggle to process visual information.
It was therefore with great trepidation that I learned that the Cross-Training Capstone Event included the expectation that all participants would have to present an academic poster. I had never seen one before, but I knew that this was a task that would stretch my capacities, requiring me to develop skills that I didn’t possess and to think in a way that did not come naturally to me. I was also lucky enough to have the opportunity to present a poster at the IAPR conference that immediately followed the capstone event, meaning I could have two goes at presenting the same poster, once largely to my peer group and then to a wider audience made up mainly of psychologists.
I have to admit that the training from Dr. Carmen Callizo and the Birmingham team around producing a poster was marvellous. I started not knowing that A0 size paper existed or that PowerPoint slides could be set to anything other than the default size, and I could not have begun to produce anything suitable without this and many more invaluable pieces of advice. It was from this training that I learned which key sections to include and in what layout, with associated advice over making the content visually appealing and readable from a distance. The research I was presenting was based on qualitative questionnaires and small-group interviews, so it did not require graphs and charts. However, I had the great benefit that my topic concerned the interpretation of the story of Noah’s Ark in the light of climate change, so I had centuries of Christian art to draw from to illustrate my themes, relieving me of the need to generate much visual material myself. I even enjoyed my search—especially when I could refer to resources like the Visual Commentary on Scripture which helpfully interpreted what I was seeing and drew out relevant theological themes. These images were supplement by a still from a film and another generated by Chat GPT. I found the AI image more challenging to create successfully, perhaps because I didn't have a clear visual (as opposed to conceptual) idea of what I wanted or the skill or artistic imagination to know how to ask ChatGPT to adapt the image it had created effectively. Emboldened by my unexpected success in finding suitable visual material, I even created a couple of bar charts and graphs to complement the pictures and (hopefully!) make the final poster look a bit more empirical and scientifically informed.
My other challenge was expressing myself briefly and clearly (as you might have noticed by now). However, the necessity to pare the description of the research right down (especially now I had quite a collection of pictures I was eager to include) meant that I had no choice but to minimise radically anything I might aspire to share. I found this unexpectedly satisfying and relished the simplicity and clarity of the final message.
Presenting the Poster
I had never attended a poster session before so I was a bit unsure about what to expect but I was completely persuaded of the benefits of sharing research in this way. As a non-presenter, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to hear a bit about a very wide range of research in a limited time and to engage in fascinating conversations with presenters. As a researcher, I found the experience overwhelmingly positive. Theology papers are often presented with no or minimal PowerPoints (perfect for non-visual complexity!) but the opportunity for questions is limited and it can be quite an intimidating experience. The much more informal and open discussions around a poster felt far more reciprocal, engaging and supportive and I benefited hugely from hearing about others’ research that intersected with mine in sometimes quite unexpected and varied ways. However, the most memorable conversation was with an IAPR delegate from the Philippines who spoke of devastating flooding in his home country and people’s questioning of whether God was punishing them. This had the very humbling effect of putting my academic exercise of asking people in England about their perspective on climate change into perspective, when even the worst of the effects we are experiencing are so comparatively mild and we bear so much responsibility for disproportionately large emissions, both historically and through to the present day. He asked, ‘What can you say to people when they are suffering like this and are asking why this is happening to them? What have they done wrong?’ There are no easy answers.
Alison’s Experience
Creating a Poster
My experience is quite different to Rebecca’s because of my education prior to starting a theology degree. I began training for ordination in the Church of England in 2014 which marked a return to essay writing after four long years of almost exclusively written exams that regularly employed a lot more drawing than words! I had studied for four years for a Masters in Chemistry, which involved a great deal of mathematics, drawing organic compounds with accompanying curly arrows, visualising molecules in 3D, and memorising the entire periodic table. Moreover, the year I spent conducting research in a lab as part of this degree contributed to a co-authored paper in Nature Methods, and as is common with scientific papers, it contained a huge number of figures and diagrams.Due to this, and the fact I married a fellow chemist who went on to do a PhD in the subject, I was very aware of the concept of a poster and the use of figures to communicate scientific research. My return to essays when starting theology for the first time was something of a challenge, especially when I had become used to finishing complex equations with Q.E.D rather than offering a nuanced statement based on reasoned argument.
My science-engaged project is a purely theoretical engagement between theology and psychology. This meant there was no possible qualitative or quantitative data to guide the structure of my poster. However, I was fortunate that the models I had chosen to utilise from both theology and psychology could be presented quite easily visually. My theological engagement interrogates the idea of ‘place’ which is of course a tangible reality that I could present by way of a photo and drawing, as well as a lovely old-fashioned map. My model from psychology had been helpfully presented as a figure in a psychological research article, which leant itself very nicely to my subsequent annotation using thought bubbles in different colours to represent my preliminary integration between theology and psychology. What also helped this process is that while at school I was quite artistic, taking Graphic Design and Art for GSCE. Not that I was particularly good at either subject, but I do really enjoy the process and recently had the pleasure of attending a Christian retreat centre with a wonderful art room that I used every day. This meant I found the process of creating my poster actually very enjoyable and it didn’t take as long as I thought it might.
Moreover, the process of creating the poster really helped me to consolidate my thinking and narrow down the scope of my theoretical engagement. We had been taught that science-engaged theology must be highly specific, engaging sub-disciplines within theology and science. Through creating the poster, it forced me to be much more precise about what I was trying to achieve in this project, and it led to new research insights as I diagrammatically brought my theological and psychological models together. While writing up my research for submission to a theological journal, I found I had a copy of my poster open the entire time as it helped guide the structure of my written work and was the prompt for the new theological insights I saw emerging.
Presenting the Poster
In terms of presenting my poster at the Capstone event, my experience here is more in line with Rebecca’s. I found the whole experience, while exhausting, hugely enjoyable. As Rebecca has already noted, it provided much more opportunity for longer conversation with those who were interested in my area of research. This made it feel much more collaborative as a process as I could see connections with other people’s research. At theology conferences we often have a rule after paper presentations: this is not the time to make an elaborate comment on someone’s work, instead, ask a question! Presenting a poster was an entirely different experience which actually invited comments and discussion that could aid each other’s research. I also really appreciated the task of communicating my work to a non-specialist audience given that most would be unfamiliar with the models I was using from theology and psychology. This again brought me greater clarity about what it was I was trying to argue in bringing together my models from theology and psychology. It helped me to see new insights even as I was presenting the work.
Should we be presenting posters in theology?
Having found poster-presenting an invigorating and enjoyable experience, this rather invites the question if this is something we could transfer into theology. The visual attractiveness of posters, the opportunity for in-depth discussion with others, the demand to present accessibly and clearly, surely all translate across disciplines? Our first reflection on this was that although we would love this to be true, we are not sure that any form of direct translation would work for many areas of theological research. Theology does not have the same clear hypothesis—aims—methods—results—conclusion framework as psychology, nor does it tend to have the clean simplicity of a piece of empirical research that seeks to find an answer to quite briefly-stated hypotheses, often with other variables screened out of consideration. In theology, we relish fine-detail analysis, nuance, paradox and complexity. While PowerPoint has become much more common when presenting theology papers, it is usually employed briefly to lay out the structure of one’s argument to enable listeners to follow. Or slides may include longer quotations from the other theologians one is engaging that would be difficult to digest otherwise. Several slides are therefore needed to communicate one’s ideas in this format and do not have the same visual impact of an arresting poster.
However, there may well be ways of presenting theological ideas with visual clarity that are beyond our respective natural forms of thinking. Perhaps a mind-map could work in an exemplary way to express the interrelation of complex ideas and the shape of an argument, supplemented with info-boxes around the edge? Or the huge range of Christian artwork from across the globe could be used to explore different biblical motifs or theological doctrines, also lending interpretations that as White Westerners we may have missed in our theological discourse. Would theological posters be a better vehicle to communicate theology to non-academic audiences in churches? Within the Church of England, we are aware that levels of theological literacy among regular churchgoers can vary. Rather than seeing any weaknesses in this area as a reflection on a lack of willingness or desire to understand complex aspects of the faith, perhaps we should ask how effectively challenging theological ideas are trickling down into church life and practice. Perhaps it is we, as theological educators, who need to do better. The traditional sermon could at times be replaced by something much more visual, like a poster, that could be discussed in small groups after a brief explanation by the church minister or worship leader. This more collaborative engagement with a theological topic might also bring unexpected insights from those we have dismissed as having nothing to offer.
While it is unclear whether such ideas have any traction within our respective settings working in theological education for the Church of England, what is plain is how valuable the experience of creating and presenting a poster has been for both of us in the development of our own research projects. Next time we are stuck on a piece of theological research, perhaps we should embrace the challenge of drawing out our idea as a poster and see what we can achieve.
