My name is Marvin Oxenham (PhD) and I am a Christian philosopher, educationalist and theologian. I was born and live in Rome, Italy, and work internationally for various organisations.
In recent years, my research has focused on character and virtue education, and this site is a result of this research. This has been as much of a personal journey as it has been an activity of scholarly enquiry. Actually, probably more of the former.
As a spouse, father of three grown children, church leader, international speaker, faculty member, leader in various contexts, project manager and quality assurance officer, I have continually come back to the importance of character in my own life. Being a person of virtue is what really counts, regardless of my successes and defeats. I need to live with who I am, and my activities and roles give me a chance to grow in virtue and exercise virtues.
As a Christian, I have engaged theologically with the area of virtue and have come to the conviction that it is a primary outcome of our salvation and the main thrust of the work of the Spirit in our lives. As an Italian (of Canadian origins), I have also had the privilege of deep exposure to classical culture, philosophy and art, all of which is meaningless without the backbone of virtue of which they are primary vehicles.
This site is born out of the request of students, theological educators and leaders in churches who have asked me to give them a tool to help educate others in virtue. I trust that my work will serve that purpose. I make it freely available in fulfilment of my own contribution to the missio dei (with gratitude to the London School of Theology for allowing me the time to produce it).
You can see more of my work on my blog charactereducation.blog and in my book Character and Virtue in Theological Education. I have drawn liberally from the latter in several sections of this site. You can follow me on Facebook here and contact me at contact(at)virtueducation.net