Chris Owen

Chris is the founding director of the S1 Project. The aim of the S1 Project is to foreground moral thinking and theological reflection in conversations about our shared common life. Chris grew up in Ohio. His first memory is the smell of vinegar and overripe tomatoes from the ketchup factory next to the trailer park where he lived. Later, after his mom and dad divorced and his mom remarried, they moved to Youngstown, where the night sky glowed from the open hearth blast furnace fires. At Georgetown, Chris became acquainted with something he didn’t think existed: faithful Christians who could think deeply about complex questions. While studying for an international relations degree, Chris took more and more classes in theology. He then pursued an MPhil in philosophy of religion at St. Andrews University, and then a master of divinity degree at Andover Newton. The S1 Project is the culmination of Chris’s vocations, avocations, and passions. Teaching, writing, and engaging in generative conversations have been constants throughout Chris’s work and life. Chris has also always loved American history. The S1 Project reflects this passion, in its focus on America’s shared common life. Chris built and continues to modify his twenty-foot wooden boat, the yawl Josephine. He lives with his wife and a pet steer on a patch of stony southern New Hampshire soil.