Megan Hopkins is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Theology, where she engages questions of ritual, revelation, and embodiment in Christian and Islamic theologies. She holds an M.T.S. from the Clough School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, as well as a B.A. and B.A.H. from Villanova University.

The comparison between Jesus Christ and the Qur’an as the Word in Christianity and Islam, respectively; little work has been done in the ritual reception of and participation in the Word. Megan’s dissertation takes up this gap, considering how Christians and Muslims remember the Word-made-Flesh and the Word-made-Speech through ritual practices. For Catholics, this is recognized through the Eucharist, and for Sufis, through dhikr. The project takes up the question, “How to live the Eucharist in the everyday?,” a query posed by Karl Rahner. Through engagement with dhikr, Christians are invited to consider the contemplative practices animated by the Eucharist which are already deeply embedded in their own tradition.

The dissertation argues that acomparative study of the Word in Christianity and Islam through ritual practices enriches and deepens Muslim-Christian understanding by making evident the particularities in which each tradition remembers through the Word, and provides Christians a strong incentive for retrieving and foregrounding embodied contemplative practices so that Eucharist may be more thoroughly integrated in everyday life.

Some of her other research interests include disability theology, contemplative theologies, the ritual turn in comparative theology, phenomenology, and experiential education.

Prior to her work at Boston College, Megan served as the Director of Education at Mosaic: Interfaith Youth Action. There she facilitated interfaith dialogue and equipped young people to work together across differences so that they may cultivate communities of justice, equity, and peace. This work animates her theological lens, rooting reflection in praxis and lived experience.