The Bishop of Durham, Dr N. T. Wright, has announced that he will be retiring from the See of Durham on August 31.
Dr Wright, who will be 62 this autumn, is returning to the academic world, in which he spent the first twenty years of his career, and will take up a new appointment as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
Announcing his move, Bishop Tom said, ”˜This has been the hardest decision of my life. It has been an indescribable privilege to be Bishop of the ancient Diocese of Durham, to work with a superb team of colleagues, to take part in the work of God’s kingdom here in the north-east, and to represent the region and its churches in the House of Lords and in General Synod. I have loved the people, the place, the heritage and the work. But my continuing vocation to be a writer, teacher and broadcaster, for the benefit (I hope) of the wider world and church, has been increasingly difficult to combine with the complex demands and duties of a diocesan bishop. I am very sad about this, but the choice has become increasingly clear.’
And another orthodox voice slips away from the house of bishops….
And we are left with the loonies.
“will take up a new appointment as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.”
For whom is this work being done? What is more important than the call of your church at its time of greatest need and its most incompetant leadership?
I think that +Tom’s work as a scholar, teacher, communicator is much more important than being Bishop of Durham, where he has been constrained somewhat by his need to be pastor to all sorts and conditions. In the end if the church is to be revived it will be by raising up faithful clergy and laity rather than by political strategy. +Tom’s role will be vital.
#4 Well, with respect wvparson, your church is a prime demonstration of what happens when orthodox bishops and others desert their posts and head out the door. I wonder if this is now happening to us. I am disappointed in both Bishop Wright and Bishop Nazir-Ali.
According to Owen Chadwick, the concern raised by Wvparson was one with which Michael Ramsey wrestled in contemplating the relative importance of episcopal office at Durham and academic life.
The consensus of those around him was that it was essential to have a body of scholar bishops. Chadwick describes how Ramsey was encountered by an Cambridge acquaintance who remarked on his gloomy visage. “I’m to be Bishop of Durham,” was the lugubrious reply.
Given that he’s in good health, I have to say I incline to Pageantmaster’s perspective. Given his leadership role over the Windsor Report – and the scholarly authority he brings to the reasserter cause – to step away from the fray at this time is at least untimely.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
I wish God Speed to +Tom and Maggie as they move north, to my alma mater. Tom’s first vocation is as a theologian and this will, God willing, give the opportunity for this to happen. I am in great sympathy with the idea of leaving the political life of the Church. I suspect he found it really frustrating and expect that he had hoped to be more used is safeguarding the Church from the errors that are confronting it. The recent several months must have been increasingly difficult as he has seen the foes of orthodoxy triumph in the AC (mainly in the Western part). I had hoped that he might influence ++Williams more, but alas it seems not. Long term he will be much more effective as a Bishop Theologian.
RE: “In the end if the church is to be revived it will be by raising up faithful clergy and laity rather than by political strategy.”
Precisely what the non-political clergy and laity and bishops were saying back in the 1970s and 80s — and which has been demonstrated to be a complete cop-out.
What a travesty it was then, and is now. The church will not, in fact “be revived” at all because TEC is an organization, and thus not capable of being fit into the constructs of a “church.”
Organizations require political strategy.
In the end, WVParson ends up accidentally supporting departure from the organization, in order for “the church” to be “revived” — precisely what ACNA has done — since “the organization” has people determined to be merely “faithful” and rolled over by the political apparatchik revisionists.
Thanks, Pageantmaster, for pointing out just how well that idea worked out for TEC! It’s a unique combination of cluelessness, denial of history, and arrogance.
While I agree with Pageantmaster and Sarah in general, we are here talking about an individual, not a person “in general”. Wright has his own reasons and calling, however much some of us will regret his absence from some elements of church politics and leadership. But training young leaders and future clergy and theologians is as essential a part of the Church’s life — “revived”, one hopes — as ordering their active ministries. We need both, and at the same time! Having been part of both aspects, at different and multiple times, I do not see these aspects as competitors in the health of the church. It would not surprise, in any case, to see Wright return to ministry active episcopal oversight at some point.
#9 Thanks for your comment Dr Radner
I have to say if others continue to take the reasons and calling in the way that +Tom and +Michael have, there has to be a serious question of how much there will be to return to “active episcopal oversight at some point” of in the future, at least in the CofE. I really cannot think of a worse time for this to have happened and for one of the solid rocks in the Church of England to head off to Scotland, of all places.
For those of us who have argued for the CofE to remain on an even keel and avoid the polarisation either of TEC on the one hand, or of FCA on the other, I think such action makes the polarisation and break up of the CofE more likely; something I would deeply regret, but the trains seem to be heading for the border.
Maybe all the orthodox faithful in TEC should study Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and then turn the tables on those currently in power. I have always maintained that the religious radicals take control because orthodox Christians act like orthodox Christians – with grace, humility, and caring. To take back TEC in a temporal fashion will unfortunately require adopting Alinsky’s ways. Of course, as Sarah said, TEC is only an organization and may very well not be worth saving at this point.
I don’t think Wright could have picted a better place. However, he will need to avoid the Valley of Sin on the eighteenth at the Old Course.
hope we get faithful replacements in durham…and rochester…..and that Rowan retires for academia too.
Both roles are praiseworthy; I’m not inclined to choose one over the other as more essential to the mission of the Church or to judge an individual’s choices. I am inclined to be grateful that this important scholar took the time he did for active service in the Church’s organization. Several very prominent academics in the C of E turned down bishoprics in the last century and declined to serve at all.
The University of St Andrews, by the way, is very strong right now in theology and biblical studies.
There could be a big upside to this. Wright must feel constrained in his present role, not only by time but also by the need to … well, be what bishops need to be. Academics are free to be much more independent. One can hope that Bishop Wright will not only give us good scholarship on the first century but also provide wise counsel on the needs of the twenty-first.
My son is a priest in the Durham diocese and so I have a wee insight into its problems. Durham is a desperately poor diocese, despite its being a “senior” see. It’s communities have been devastated by the closing of mines and ship-building companies. Any Bishop of Durham has much extra-diocesan work to do. Whereas it was once possible for its bishop to fully enagage in scholarly work, today the diocese needs a bishop who may devote a great deal of time and energy to pastoral leadership. Bishop Tom is a good enough pastor to realize that he has limits to his energy. A predecessor, +Ian Ramsey actually worked himself to death trying to engage all the roles demanded of a Bishop of Durham.
+Tom’s decision is not about abandoning the “institution”. If anything he has become more of a Churchman as bishop and as he has pursued scholarship.
Witnessing to orthodoxy, training scholars, clergy and laity, are not some lesser or less ecclesial vocation. We have become so totally politicized that we have lost our faith in non-political witness, the growing of the Christian commuity from bottom up. This was the strategy of the Evangelical and Catholic revivals. I see Bishop Wright’s decision as vocational, freeing him to serve the church in an exciting and renewing manner.
The Bishop of Durham has made some very significant contributions to the Communion. In particular the architecture and detail of the Windsor Report, which if kept to would have provided a solution for the Communion’s problems. A useful point which got lost in the latest Cameron draft of the Covenant was the issue of how we judge which disputes are significant, and Wright kept coming back to the Kuala Lumpur formula of: intensity, substance and extent.
If he had been listened to, or better still if he had been ABC, we would not have had the continuous contradictory signals coming out: KJS would not have been seated at Dar without clarifying where her church was going: +Rowan would not have told the Americans, and +Sentamu the Canadians, that the Dar deadline for response was not a deadline; the Joint Standing Committee would not have been sent to New Orleans by Rowan and KJS in what was a put up job to whitewash a TEC response instead of reporting back to the Primates as was required; KJS would not have been given to understand that there would be no consequences however outrageous her and her church’s behaviour; GAFCON would not have been formed when the majority of the Communion decided +Rowan was useless; all and sundry in TEC would not have been invited to Lambeth without clarification of their position and the bishops representing the majority would not have stayed away; there would have been none of the ridiculous Indaba Delphi Technique manipulation; none of the subsequent shambles in Jamaica, and perhaps the fiasco for +Rowan of Singapore when such message as he did send was received with polite indifference. Such action as Rowan will now take is almost certain to be too little too late as usual and we will probably see something I would have otherwise considered impossible to achieve previously, but which Lambeth Palace looks on track to achieve – to split the Communion into not two, but three.
With Bishop Tom, TEC would not have been misled into believing that their would be no consequences for their actions, and by now the Covenant would have been in operation, the Communion more united and the Church of England would not be about to fall apart this Summer.
But that is to play ‘what if’.
#14 Who are the strong figures in biblical studies at St Andrews?
I guess amongst the established folks Mark Elliott and Philip Esler. Amongst newer folks Nathan MacDonald and Grant Macaskill. Doubtless the retirement of Richard Bauckham and the short stay of Markus Bockmuehl weakened their team.
Mark Elliott, a good friend of mine, would be honored to be considered a biblical scholar, but his work is in theology and church history; he and I taught some history of interpretation together, but he is not a NT or OT scholar. Philip Esler was in admin when I left the faculty. I am not aware of him being a major NT scholar, and I mean that with respect. Nathan is on a five year leave to work in Gottingen. Grant is a promising young scholar.
PS–also, one of the challenges in Scotland is general church ennui. St Andrews–because of location and because of reputation as an English school in Scotland–has rarely if any church candidates for the C of S. The Scottish Episcopal Church has its own very remedial program for ordination training. So it is possible to say that teaching undergrads is mostly unconnected from ministerial training. The reason for hiring NT Wright in the context of the academic mission of the school will be to attract PhD students, and these the university will hope for financial reasons will come from outwith the EU, e.g., north american evangelicals. One thing people outside the UK may not realise is the degree to which schools like St Andrews need money from non-UK students to keep programs in divinity afloat. But this can mean a strange disconnection from real life in the church on the ground, in terms of influence. Here again, it will be interesting to see what if any influence NTW being in Scotland will have on the local church situation, as not a member of the Kirk and on the faculty of a school not very plugged into Kirk life (for better or for worse).
Thanks for the corrections. Sounds as if Bishop Tom will be a great asset to St. Andrews.
With Dr Radner, I think the setting of academy against church as an either/or alternative is a false dichotomy. Profound contributions to the church and the kingdom came come from both quarters. To perceive this move as +Wright ‘leaving’ or ‘getting out’ of his church is to project North American issues into another context altogether.
I think +Wright (no doubt very prayerfully) has made a wise decision. He is a much better academic than ecclesiastical leader. While I have no knowledge of his leadership with Durham (and I have no doubt he applied himself diligently), his leadership further afield does not match either his scholarship or gifts as a communicator. +Wright’s capacity to provide leadership amongst evangelicals within the CoE was fatally undermined by his ill-considered and intemperate responses on a couple of significant occasions (with every appearance of being encouraged to so speak by Fulcrum leadership – if anyone is responsible for undermining his leadership, questions should be asked in that direction). His response to Gafcon, together with the dismissive tone his review of ‘Pierced for our Transgressions’ meant that he was and is never going to gain the respect of the wider evangelical constituency – and may have been close to the only figure in a position to do so.
In other directions, I am very appreciative of his significant imprint on certain sections of the Windsor Report, and for the candour of his public statements on what he perceived the ABC needed to do at certain points, but if anything I suspect he is a little naive when it comes to ecclesiastical politics. He could have been a very good friend to ++Rowan on a collegial leadership basis had the ABC chosen to listen to him (what a combination they would have made), but in the end ++Rowan took counsel elsewhere, with the devastating track record noted by pageantmaster above.
NT Wright is not just an excellent scholar – he is right up there in the top echelon of NT scholars of our generation, with deep respect for scripture and gospel convictions, and a seriously gifted writer and communicator to boot. His influence through a single volume like ‘Surprised by Hope’ will far exceed his capacities within ecclesiastical politics. While I don’t always agree with his conclusions or stances, I read him no less critically than I read any other scholar, and he provides some marvellous and fresh insights in reading NT theology.
Far from the near obsessive exercises in critiquing Wright’s every dotted ‘i’ or crossed ‘t’ written from some quarters (and mostly very poor models in balanced engagement – it will be a tragedy if younger evangelical students are scared off Wright by such polemical theatre), we should be thanking God for such a theological voice at both academic and popular levels. May his keyboard run hot with the fruit of his passionate engagement with scripture in coming years!
To be truthful though he has been one of the very few COE bishops who had rather good knowledge about what was occurring in the States. (It’s been very hard, one imagines, for most COE bishops to know what to make of what’s going on within TEC). He’s also one of the few that has been prepared to speak out. His theological voice has been heard in several of the Communion’s texts over the last 5 years and an element in the authority of that contribution has been his role as Bishop of Durham. All of these will be missed – of course, he’ll continue to contribute in important ways and the new role may permit his voice may be heard in fresh ways (I hope).
Lost in much of this discussion seems to be the fact that the Bishop of Durham is also called to discern a call on his life by God. Seemingly, he has prayerfully considered what God is calling him to do at this point in his life, probably with some input and spiritual guidance from others. That he feels led to step down as the Bishop of Durham and take up a post in Scotland ought not be met with derision, “shame on him,” or “woe is us” attitude that pervades this thread, in my opinion, but with the prayers of people hoping that +Tom is, indeed, being led by the Spirit where God wills. To be a great leader in the Church, one must be willing to serve. He is giving up a title and seat in the House of Lords, a pretty nice castle for a home, and a predictable and somewhat comfortable life to pursue this call. Let’s pray that God blesses this ministry as He has his time as Bishop of Durham . . .
“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls.” –Rom. 14:4
RE: “We have become so totally politicized that we have lost our faith in non-political witness . . . ”
Absolutely — if we are to have “faith” that “non-political witness” will transform organizations.
RE: “This was the strategy of the Evangelical and Catholic revivals.”
Yes — wonder why the strategy of the 1980s and 90s didn’t work in TEC, then. In fact, was a massive and complete failure.
I personally think there is a short term vs long term issue here:
in the short term losing him from the House of Bishop’s is a tragedy.
In the long term, his scholarship will have more impact across more countries, denominations, and centuries than he could possibly have as Bishop of Durham.
It did however, make me wonder whether it was in part a judgment about whether he thought any progress could be made while Rowan was there …. He may feel able to say more, and do more, when he is freer of the institutional limitations.. but that is pure speculation ?!?
Tim Harris has written an excellent, balanced summary. I think it very sad that Tom hit the keyboards in such a peremptory way to attack conservative evangelicals on PSA (which he believes in himself!) and to denounce Gafcon, when he (with Nazir-Ali) could have added some English intellectual heft. And I still can’t get my head around what he is saying about justification – I find John Piper a clearer guide here.
That said, his contributions in Gospel studies are immense. Is it too much to hope that a realignment with the orthodox Global South could still happen, now that he is leaving the Englsih establishment?
St Andrews is a good university but not nearly so influential as, say, Oxford or Cambridge, or even London. I would have thought that N T Wright could have hoped for a place at one of those universities, and I don’t understand why he has settled for St Andrews. It may be that he just wants a quieter life.
Margaret, I think you framed the question and the answer accurately.
badman – [i]It may be that he just wants a quieter life[/i]
Or it might be that is where God needs him. He is not going to have a quiet life. See this rather unpleasant response from a senior Scottish cleric to +Tom’s appointment. And if you need any further proof of the lack of intellectual rigour and lack of orthodox Christian leadership in the St Andrews diocese which is being urged to refuse +Tom permission to minister as a priest, look no further than Bishop David Chillingworth’s blog noting particularly his failure to distance himself from the unChristian sentiments being expressed re +Tom.