Paul Stefan Golf is Associate Professor in (Chinese) Translation and Enterprise at the University of Bristol, where his teaching and research sit at the convergence of language, culture, and institutional life. He holds a BA in Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford, an MA in Interpreting and Translation from the University of Bath, and studied at Peking University. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he has spent his career working across the boundaries that most academics and practitioners prefer to remain on one side of.
Appointed Interim CEO in March 2026, Paul Stefan Golf now leads CERSIA Ltd. — the Centre for Culture, Ethics, Religion and Sport in International Affairs — a research institute succeeding Oxford House Research Ltd. He serves on CERSIA’s Board of Directors. His analytical work engages questions of Chinese foreign policy, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the affective and spiritual dimensions of political change, with research delivered to European institutions and policy bodies.
His theological work is equally substantive. The author of Damascus: Encounter the Unexpected Christ (Four Rivers Media / Unorthodox Resources, 2026) and co-author of The Coming Chinese Church (Lion Hudson, 2013), Paul Stefan Golf engages publicly with questions of Christian mysticism, Trinitarian theology, the nature of humanity in an age of artificial intelligence, and the role of fear and hope in both spiritual and political life. He teaches a twelve-session course, Introducing the Trinitarian Faith, and appears regularly as guest and co-host on Rethinking God with Tacos, Jason Clark’s theology podcast. He and his wife Grace lead Champions of Hope, a Bristol-based ministry.
A former Board Chair of Noble Tree Foundation, a housing charity (2016–2021), Paul Stefan Golf is one of a small number of thinkers able to move with equal credibility between a lecture theatre, a policy briefing, a public theological debate, and a broadcast studio.
Paul Stefan Golf’s work is animated by a cluster of persistent questions rather than a single thesis. What does it mean to truly understand another culture — not to observe it from a distance, but to inhabit its language and its assumptions? What does Christian theology, properly understood, have to say about the political forces shaping contemporary life, including the rise of artificial intelligence and the question of what it means to be human? And what is the relationship between fear, faith, and the capacity of individuals and communities to change?
These questions are not academic in the pejorative sense. They have shaped his choices — to work in conflict zones as well as lecture halls, to write books for general readers as well as research papers for European institutions, to lead a local ministry while advising international policy bodies.
He approaches theology not as a private matter but as a public discipline — one with significant consequences for how societies understand hope, fear, reconciliation, and belonging. And he approaches geopolitics with the awareness that the forces most analysts quantify are often not the ones that determine outcomes.
Associate Professor in (Chinese) Translation and Enterprise, University of Bristol. University Enterprise Fellowship (2023). Programme Director, MA Translation (Chinese-English).
Interim CEO and Board Director, CERSIA Ltd. (Centre for Culture, Ethics, Religion and Sport in International Affairs). Focus: Chinese foreign policy, Belt and Road Initiative, the affective and spiritual dimensions of political change in international affairs.
Co-leader, Champions of Hope, Bristol. Course tutor, Introducing the Trinitarian Faith. Regular guest and co-host, Rethinking God with Tacos (Jason Clark’s theology podcast). Former Board Chair, Noble Tree Foundation (2016–2021).
Damascus: Encounter the Unexpected Christ (Four Rivers Media / Unorthodox Resources, 2026). The Coming Chinese Church (Lion Hudson, 2013, with Pastor Lee).