After completing his degree,[7] he interviewed for jobs at British Steel Corporation and Rolls-Royce, but then was offered a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge and decided to study theology for a few years before going into business.
He gained his doctorate at Cambridge,[3][5] writing his dissertation on Karl Barth and biblical narrative[1] under the direction of Donald MacKinnon[8] and Stephen Sykes.
[2] Living in the inner city, his theology was shaped by a multi-faith experience, and he also became involved in a local Anglican church in the evangelical tradition.
[9] He helped found and chairs the management committee of the Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Studies at Cambridge.
[2] He is highly regarded for his scholarship, is a sought-after lecturer and preacher, and serves as an advisor to the bishops of the Anglican Communion.
Hardy and Ford participated in meetings of the early "textual reasoning" group founded by Ochs at the American Academy of Religion, reading the Tanakh, Bible, and Quran together with Christian and Muslim scholars.
[14][15] In October 2007 he helped launch a letter by 138 Muslim scholars to 25 Christian leaders, including the Pope, the Orthodox patriarchs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the heads of the world alliances of the Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist and Reformed churches, calling for peace and reconciliation between Christians and Muslims for the survival of the world.
He has been a trustee for the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton since 2007 and a member of the board of advisors for the John Templeton Foundation since 2008.
He is an editorial advisory board member for the Current Issues in Theology series published by Cambridge University Press.
He is an external advisor for the Centre for Christian Studies in Hong Kong (since 2006), a trustee for the Golden Web Foundation, a developer of a global multimedia publishing system with a focus on pre-modern world history, heritage and culture (since 2006), and a consultant for L'Arche Communities, a federation of over 100 communities for people with severe mental disabilities (since 1993).