Douglas J. Davies is Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham and Director of the Centre for Death and Life Studies. He trained in both anthropology and theology and has taught the study of religion for many years both at Nottingham and Durham Universities. His specialist interests and many publications include work on death, funerary ritual, and afterlife beliefs, as well as the Mormon and Anglican religious traditions and theoretical questions of the links between anthropology and theology, with a special interest in how the human desire for meaning becomes a sense of salvation.