Evangelical Focus
Premier Christian News · NOTTINGHAM · 13 NOVEMBER 2025 · 16:00 CET
Christian students have called on the University of Nottingham in the UK to restore its Theology and Religious studies degrees after the university decided to axe them.
From now on, students will only be able to study theology within the Theology, Religion, Philosophy and Ethics joint degree.
This is part of the university's recent decision to suspend 48 degree programmes, including Music, Modern languages, American and Canadian studies, Nursing and Agriculture, among others.
The university explains that “the courses have been selected for suspension for a number of reasons, including low demand from prospective students, declining populations on the courses and low research income, meaning that they are less financially viable for us to maintain”.
“In order to ensure that our institution is sustainable for current and future generations, we need to make tough decisions based on changes in student demand”, they add.
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Undergraduate and postgraduate students who have already started their courses, will be able to finish them, but the university will not recruit new students onto these courses. This means that foundation students will have to choose other degrees.
Arabella Moore Smith, a Christian student, has set up a petition against this decision at Change.org, “to get Theology back in lecture rooms in 2026-2027”.
“Whether you believe in God(s) or not, Theology and Religious Studies is absolutely central to growth of the human psyche, culture, and our general moral awareness. Religion and spirituality has and always will be current, as well as something that challenges how we see other people”, stresses the petition.
“Whether or not you believe in Jesus Christ, Theology is a subject that is of vital importance to our world”, it concludes.
It is not only Christian students who have expressed concern about the cuts to degree programmes; many university staff, students and unions (UCU) have also condemned the university and raised their objections.
“The course suspensions have been rushed and carried out without consultation or a transparent methodology. They not only target hugely important and successful parts of the University, but areas that serve the wider student body and also the community the University should be part of”, said UCU branch leader Nick Clare.
The UCU announced strike action every Monday and Friday from 10 November to 12 December.
There is also a petition on Change.org for each of the suspended degrees, asking the university to change its mind.
Some months ago, a report from the Religious Education Council (REC) and National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE), stated that “there will soon be only 21 higher education institutions in England and Wales offering undergraduate degrees in theology and religious studies”.
That is why many British faith leaders, academics and public figures, wrote an open letter , compiled by the Theos think thank, warning that the decline “has adverse effects for society”.
In Germany, data from the German Federal Statistical Office showed that the number of Protestant and Roman Catholic students choosing to study theology has fallen by around a third in the last five years.
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