David Jenkins was an Anglican bishop who questioned some of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity.
His views on the virgin birth and the resurrection caused a storm of protest and considerable opposition to his appointment as Bishop of Durham.
His forays into the field of politics saw attacks on both Conservative and Labour administrations for what he saw was their over-reliance on market forces.
An academic theologian, rather than a parish priest, he became for many, the symbol of modernisation and liberal ideas in the established church.
“He was a cleric who believed the church had to break free of dogma if it was to retain a place in the modern world.”
He has broken free of his place in this world. May the Jesus he might have believed in have mercy on his soul.
There’s no doubt that his pronouncements caused much unhappiness to many his diocese at the time.
On a personal note, however, even though my late father had been part of the delegation to John Hapgood asking that he not consecrate David Jenkins as Bishop of Durham, it was David who was one of those to reassure him that it would be proper for him to resign the seat in General Synod to which he had (reluctantly) consented to be elected, in order to accept a chair at the Catholic University of America (1990-1991, 1992-1994).
Without such reassurances I suspect my father would have refused what he later viewed as his happiest three years since his Oxford days (1949-1952), so our family has cause to be grateful to him for that.