Know the Truth

Largely as a result of my desire to make St Nic’s more central to the life of the community, we set about a radical reordering of the building. From my first visit to the church I realised it had huge problems, but equal potential. It was ideally and excitingly positioned in a busy market square, yet it was in a very rundown state. The interior was gloomy and unattractive. The pews, many in very bad condition, made it difficult to adapt the space for anything other than worship. Heating was supplied by a temperamental coal boiler which, I was told, was the last solid-fuel boiler in the diocese, and which required stoking from Friday onwards before the Sunday services could be comfortably held. There were also serious leaks in the roof – six or so buckets were placed by the church cleaner, Mrs Simpson, at the offending places. If one adds to the list of problems the fact that the church interior was defiantly puritan in its ugliness and tastelessness, something radical had to be done.

The creation of an attractive interior that provided facilities which could be used seven days a week became the mirror image of the spiritual pilgrimage of the congregation at the same time. I learned the lesson that no reordering of any building should happen without the spiritual reordering of people. That we were able to raise £350,000 within two years at a time when inflation was raging at around 20 per cent was only slightly short of miraculous. I remain convinced to this day that many congregations do not properly see that buildings may either be part of their successful outreach into the community or, in the majority of cases, significant reasons for the decline of church life.

It is said in the Old Testament that Jacob’s love for Rachel was so special that his seven years of service ‘seemed but a day’. My time at St Nic’s was sometimes tough and always exhausting, but it stands out as perhaps the most significant period of our joint ministry. Eileen was blissfully happy bringing up our four children and sharing energetically in our work together. All of the children started school in Durham, and our eldest, Rachel, went away to college in London, while our sons Mark and Andrew completed A’ levels and ‘O’ levels respectively. Our youngest, Lizzie, was in primary school by the time we left. We lived in a beautiful seven-bedroomed vicarage overlooking the cathedral and castle, with grand, high-ceilinged rooms for entertaining, and a garden filled with adventure for the children and bushes packed with summer fruits. The whole family were to remember Durham with great fondness; it was an idyllic place to grow up.

Eileen’s ministry developed to such an extent in the church family that she provided much of the hospitality offered by St Nic’s, and opened the vicarage for bed-and-breakfast in order to raise money for the building project. Eileen’s mother, Margaret Daisy Hood, now in her eighties, came to live with us, having spent the last ten years of her widowhood with Eileen’s sister in Canada. It was clear that Mrs Hood was suffering from dementia, and this became very distressing for us all. Sometimes she would wander from the house, to be found in a confused state in some part of the city and be brought back by a kindly and sympathetic neighbour. This certainly added to the stress on Eileen. Alas, both her mother and my father died within a short while of each other towards the end of our time at St Nic’s. Both were wonderful Christian people whose influence on us was great. I particularly felt the death of Dad as his passing was so sudden – he had a severe heart attack and died instantly. His funeral in Dagenham Parish Church took the form of deep thanks-giving for the rich life of a truly humble man whose legacy was considerable.

In my second year at St Nic’s an unexpected phone call from Christopher Hill, on the staff at Lambeth Palace, affected my life greatly. Christopher’s responsibility was for ecumenical relationships. I remember that November morning very well.

‘Would you like to spend three weeks in Rome?’ was the strange question.

Looking out of my office window on a very bleak and cold Durham, I replied, ‘Yes please. But tell me more.’

I was told that the following February the Anglican Centre in Rome would be hosting a three-week course for representatives of all Provinces of the Anglican Communion, organised by the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. John Moorman, the former Bishop of Ripon and now retired to Durham, was to lead the course. I had been chosen to represent the Church of England.

It was a life-changing experience. Ever since my Oak Hill days I had been becoming closer and closer to Christians of other denominations, especially in the Roman Catholic Church. In Durham warm relationships with Father John Tweedy, the local Roman Catholic priest, were quickly established and we worked closely together. I was also a regular visitor to Ushaw Seminary, a few miles outside the city. The visit to Rome made me aware that this great Christian city was part of my heritage of faith, and Roman Catholicism entered my understanding of theology. The place overwhelmed me, and in my spare time from the lectures and sessions of the course I would walk for miles – retracing the journey of many a martyr from the Colosseum to the catacombs. In the crypt of St Peter’s I would linger and pray at the very place where the bones of St Peter were laid.

Bishop John Moorman, a renowned authority on St Francis, was a splendid leader. Other teachers shaped our thinking – including a youthful Terry Waite, who was then working for the Roman Catholic Mission Department, and Professor Gerry O’Collins, New Testament theologian at the Gregoriana who later became a dear friend. Among fellow Anglicans was Misaeri Kauma, Assistant Bishop of Namirembe in Uganda, an inspiring and dynamic missionary Bishop. The three weeks in Rome gave us all an opportunity to study Catholicism, not only through the lectures and reading but also through rare opportunities to meet representatives of the many ‘dicasteries’, or departments, that comprise the Vatican.

But this three-week study course was not an unembroidered charm offensive by the Roman Catholic Church. It was a deliberate attempt to open the Church to others. I was especially struck by our private audience with Pope Paul VI. A deeply holy man, he was frank about the problems of his Church following the Second Vatican Council. As he saw it, the Council, which concluded its work in 1965, and with which he clearly identified, had left the Church divided. Implementation of its vision had fallen to him but was proving difficult to achieve, although much had been done. Now, in the twilight of his life and ministry, he was showing signs of great weariness, yet a serene spirit in Christ came through strongly to us.

On the course we were invited to put our toughest questions to our Catholic friends. As the only evangelical present, my theological questions concerned the infallibility of the Pope, the Marian dogmas, the authority of the Church, and prayers to the saints. While I was by no means fully satisfied by the responses given, I was better informed when I returned home. Two years later I made a private visit to consolidate my knowledge and to study in greater depth the significance of the Virgin Mary.

In my sixth year at St Nic’s I began to receive letters, phone calls and personal messages asking me to consider putting my hat in the ring for the Principalship of Trinity College, Bristol. I rejected all these overtures for a number of reasons. The first, and most important, was that my work at St Nic’s was not over. I could not leave when there was still a large amount of money to raise and the building work had not yet begun. A second reason which appeared to make it unlikely that I would be offered the post was that Trinity College’s theological tradition seemed far removed from mine. It stood for a reformed evangelical doctrinal commitment which seemed to me narrow, negative, anti-Rome, and puritanical. Perhaps this perception of Trinity was ill-founded, but it was shared by many other people in the Church at that time. Strong appeals to consider the post, however, made Eileen and me waver. What should we do?

I decided to get my Bishop’s advice. I did not know the Bishop of Durham, John Habgood, very well, though I had met him many times. He was an excellent speaker, preacher and scholar, but seemed rather remote to ordinary mortals. He had no capacity for small-talk, and most clergy in the diocese dismissed him as a pastor. This latter estimate, I knew first-hand, was mistaken. Two years before I had had a car crash and had ended up in hospital, following which I had required several weeks’ convalescence. On hearing this, John Habgood made available a sum of money to allow me to have a proper rest. I knew that, in spite of the impression he could give at times, he was a caring man, and would answer every question with great insight. I outlined my predicament to him, and without hesitation he gave his opinion that Trinity needed to be brought into the Church of England, and that I was ideally positioned to do it. He urged me to be positive about meeting the College Council, but said that I must make it clear to them that I had to finish the building project at St Nic’s before I could possibly take up the position.

In the light of that advice I accepted the invitation to visit the college and meet the Council. To my surprise, I found that it was set up as a formal interview. As I was not convinced I should even be considering the post, I had not prepared myself to argue my corner. Before the interview I met Trevor Lloyd, later Archdeacon of Barnstaple, the other person being interviewed that day, who shared with me his opinion that Trinity was at a crossroads – unpopular with Church of England ordinands, it was having to rely on American students from nonconformist traditions who were beginning to change the culture of the college. Trevor’s verdict was that Trinity was in a make-or-break situation, and that the appointment of the next Principal would be decisive for its survival. That was a sobering thought to take into the interview. However, the meeting with the Council went very well. I made it abundantly plain that I was not seeking a new post at the moment, and would have to have very good reasons to move from St Nic’s, where I was very happy. To my utter astonishment, at the end of the day I was summoned to meet the Council again, and was offered the post of Principal of Trinity College, Bristol.

I returned home on the train stunned. Eileen had not bothered to come with me, because neither of us had believed that this move could possibly be right for us. But as I told her about the day’s events we began to see that this could be the next step for us. It was a real and demanding challenge. The more we thought about it, the more we could see that my experience of theological education and parish life fitted me well for the post. We had to admit that once the building project at St Nic’s was complete my presence was not necessary for the next stage, which was to use the buildings for the wider community.

The lay leaders of the church were wonderful in their acceptance of our decision and their willingness to release us once the building work had been completed. The next nine months sped by quickly – we raised the remaining £50,000; indeed we exceeded that amount – and a week of celebrations were held, with the Bishop of Durham leading a service of blessing for the development. The farewells were sad and generous, and we travelled to Bristol with heaviness of heart but much gratitude to God for all we had learned at St Nic’s. We had been blessed beyond belief.

All my fears concerning Trinity College were confirmed when I began my new work as Principal in September 1982. Life at St Nic’s had been tough enough, especially in the first four years, but I seemed to have fallen from the frying pan into the fire. There were structural problems with the constituent colleges in the union. Tyndale Hall, associated with the famous names of Stafford Wright and Jim Packer, was renowned for its emphasis on uncompromising and clear evangelical teaching rooted in the inerrancy of scripture. Clifton Theological College, associated with Alec Motyer, had been established in protest to Tyndale and took a milder line on doctrinal matters, although it was still clearly evangelical. The Women’s College, which was itself an amalgam of St Michael’s House, Oxford, and Dalton House, had buildings across the Downs. Years earlier Oliver Tompkins, Bishop of Bristol, had issued an ultimatum to the three evangelical colleges to amalgamate, and they had done so with a lot of grumbling and not a little feuding.

When I arrived, the amalgamation was not complete. An independent body called the Clifton College Trust still held the deeds of the main building, and was reluctant to surrender them because of suspicions that the ethos of Tyndale would dominate. I found myself regarded with no small suspicion. Older Council members representing the Tyndale tradition were worried that my more open style would undermine a clear-cut evangelical tradition, whilst some of the Clifton College fraternity were fearful that I would be taken over by the dominant Tyndale group. It was clear that if this division were to be overcome – by love and persuasion – it would take some time to achieve.

In the short term the college was in a mess, partly due to its undeserved reputation in the Church of England, which I myself had shared. I realised from my first day that the college was served by an able and highly dedicated faculty who could hold their own with any theological department in the country. Nevertheless, the immediate future was troubling. The break-even financial figure was 105 students, but four weeks before the beginning of term only just over eighty had enrolled to join us. We were heading towards a huge deficit. Of those likely to join us, only forty-eight were ordinands, even though the Church’s allocation of ordinands to Trinity was eighty. The bursar told me that nothing could be done to tackle that year’s deficit.

I was dismayed, but I was also quite sure that a great deal could be done. To begin with, it was important to restore confidence in the college, starting with the staff. Once again the theological vision had to be shared and owned. I was delighted to find no objection to my desire to do something about the worship, which I felt must combine that Anglican balance of word and sacrament. I knew that with talented students the musical standard, and therefore the quality of worship, would steadily improve. When the students arrived our policy was to help them to realise that they had come to the best theological college in England. There was, I felt, a natural and healthy pride in speaking confidently of this. Another part of my job as Principal was to promote the college and make it visible in the structures of the Church. This was done in a variety of ways.

First, I accepted many speaking engagements, as a means to promote the college and to inform as many people as possible that Trinity gave a first-class theological education. Second, I revived a practice which Maurice Wood had developed at Oak Hill, of staff and students spending long weekends in parishes talking about the call of ordination. Third, I kept in close touch with some of the large parishes which were key providers of ordinands, especially at Oxford and Cambridge. My former Principal Michael Green was now at St Aldate’s, Oxford, and his church became a particular quarry for excellent and gifted ordinands.

The students themselves were a good bunch on the whole, but I was worried about the quality of some of the non-ordinands. It is understandable, if not excusable, for Principals to admit people simply to make up numbers. A few of the students at Trinity were plainly unable to cope with the college’s demanding intellectual disciplines, and were there hoping that the course would provide a back door into ordination.

If this troubled me, I had a greater shock when I received worrying reports about one particular student. The first complaints came from two of the women students, who reported that he was sexually harassing them. I called him in at once. He was from a breakaway Christian group, and was hoping to obtain a degree so that he might be ordained in his own Church. He listened to the complaints in an untroubled way, and it was clear that he had pestered the women but was completely free of shame. I gave him a lecture on the kind of behaviour I expected from students at Trinity. However, his view of sexuality appeared to amount to nothing more than an expectation of gratification. He assumed it was obvious that, as a single man, he had sexual needs that should be fulfilled. I asked him to square this with his theology and the discipline of the college. Sending him away again with a warning, I felt with sinking heart that I was encountering a wholly new phenomenon in my experience – a Christian who felt that there were no rights or wrongs in the area of sexual morality. My fears were realised as I and his tutor watched the man’s progress. Besides his inappropriate behaviour with female members of the college he was a practising homosexual. And then he mentioned without a trace of shame that he paid weekly visits to his ‘hooker’ in a nearby village. My mouth must have dropped. Perhaps I had misheard. ‘My hooker,’ he repeated. He did not last long in Trinity after that.

The episode prepared me for aspects of culture that I was to meet later in my ministry as Archbishop – namely the erosion of holiness by a cultural view that sexual intercourse is of little more significance than shaking hands. When this is combined with a view of the Bible as itself being culturally conditioned, with no authority in matters of sexuality, the drift into hedonistic narcissism becomes inevitable. The Church which blesses such immorality, or calls it holy, ends up as nothing more than a benign religious club.

Returning to theological education after seven years away in parish ministry brought to the surface some of my deepest questions and worries about the purpose and success of our colleges and courses in turning out effective ministers and priests with the leadership skills to work with others and to build up congregations. Was it our aim to produce theologians? Or to produce pastors and teachers? The curriculum of most colleges and courses did not make the purpose transparent. From my experience of three theological colleges it was clear that the majority of their staffs had little experience of parish life, and even less of leading congregations into growth. But it was also true that the brightest and most visible of students did not necessarily make the most dedicated and effective clergy.

These two facts worried me a great deal. If the task of the Church of England’s colleges and courses is to turn out godly men and women with fire in their bellies to teach, evangelise, pastor and build up congregations, then the logical conclusion is that that task is closer to vocational training than it is to making men and women academics. But compelling though this argument was, it was not without problems. My own experience told me that we could not ignore the intellect. While I wanted my students to leave college with a clear focus, dedication and enthusiasm for building up churches, I was also concerned to equip them to handle ideas, and that meant taking theology seriously. How could one square that circle?

I had also become aware of a very significant difference between Catholic and Anglican models of theological education. The Roman Catholic model focused on ministerial formation, whereas the Anglican model was more intent on information. It seemed as if we attempted to prepare people by loading them with knowledge, while Roman Catholic priests were formed in their spirituality and the application of theological knowledge to the life of the Church.

I found myself arguing more and more for two significant changes in theological teaching. First, that the present basic education of three years for those under thirty, and two years for those over, was woefully inadequate. Our starting point should be four years for those under thirty and three years for those older. Furthermore, my experience suggested to me that the best way to prepare would be by sandwich training, with substantial time spent learning from effective ministers and priests. Lastly, the whole purpose of theological education and training must be earthed in prayer and spiritual transformation. I was convinced that effective ministers – of all traditions – shared one striking characteristic: they had a burning love of God and a yearning to share Him with others. However, the responsibility for delivering such radical changes in ministerial formation was not mine – it belonged to the Church centrally.

My thoughts about the necessity of changes for the future of the Church’s ministry did not stem from any misgivings about my students. We were able to attract men and women of great ability, and student numbers grew to such an extent that by the time I left Trinity in 1987 it was the largest theological college in the Church of England. Furthermore, the divisions between the Clifton College Trust and Trinity had been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

At the end of my fifth and final year at Trinity one of our most gifted students, Phil Potter, mentioned to me in passing that there was a lot of talk about my becoming Bishop of Bath and Wells. I was flabbergasted to learn this, but what I was even less prepared for was the way that the thought both disturbed me and prompted unhealthily ambitious thoughts. Up to that point, senior office in the Church had not entered my head. I was prepared to stay at Trinity until my work was over, and then return to parish ministry. But ambition now began to enter my psyche, and I both liked it and loathed it. Looking back on that time, I am still not sure how to interpret the ambition I felt. Of course, ambition is not always unhealthy. When one has gifts to offer any organisation, the desire to give leadership for the good of the whole is not bad. A part of me was suggesting that I had proved myself for a wider leadership role, and that there was nothing wrong in this unexpected desire to become a Bishop. However, to this day I feel that I was encountering something within me that was not good. I was desiring the role of Bishop more than the task of leadership it demanded. It was important to resolve this, which I attempted by an honest analysis of my desires and by taking them to God in prayer.

In my journal from this period I wrote: ‘It’s an awful cancer. I know at the level of my mind that this is all about baubles; that serving Christ is the most important thing. That being faithful, obedient and ready is all He requires. But deep within there is a demon which loves power and authority, and he will be disappointed if nothing comes.’ A realisation dawned that I needed to rededicate myself to the work of Trinity College. And in prayer I dedicated myself to God’s work rather than my own concerns. I found this liberating, as though a weight had been lifted from me.

Two days later, on 23 June 1987, an envelope dropped through our letterbox from Number 10 Downing Street. The letter, signed by the Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher, simply said that the Crown Appointments Commission had put my name forward, and that she hoped I would accept this offer. After careful thought and prayer I did, and was consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells on 3 December 1987.

7 Letters from Number 10

‘What the average Englishman wanted was a Church which would respond to his needs, teaches a message which he could understand, and lift him to a higher level of life – but, this, somehow, was just what he never got.’

Ronald Jasper, A.C. Headlam (1960)

THE MOVE TO WELLS WAS NOT without its sadness. We had enjoyed our time in Bristol greatly, living for the first time in our married life not in a college community or a house tied to a church, but in a normal street. And so much had been achieved at the college. With the co-operation of the faculty and council the college was now united, phase one of an exciting building programme was complete, and Trinity was full and attracting ordinands from throughout the Church of England.