[Principal Richard] Turnbull’s supporters \u201d\u201c off the record, of course \u201d\u201c suggest that it is he, not the saintly Storkey, who is the real victim of a witch-hunt. “This charge that he is a fundamentalist is baloney,” says one well-placed Anglican academic and writer. “He was brought in as a new broom and Wycliffe badly needed one if it was going to survive. Its administration was hopeless and, although it was doing well in teaching theology, its training for ministry was well below the standards needed. The irony in the three former principals attacking Richard is that he wouldn’t need to do what he is doing if they had grasped the nettle of modernisation when they were there.”<\/p>\n
In a church famed for its moderation, neither side in the dispute seems willing to turn the other cheek. What seems clear, though, is that most students there are heartily sick of the whole matter and see it largely as a personality clash that is threatening to distract them from the serious business of studying the Bible.<\/p>\n
Whether Wycliffe can ever get back on an even keel when, as Turnbull and his supporters hope, the wave of bad publicity has ebbed away, may depend ultimately on a review of the status of the private permanent halls at Oxford currently being carried out by a working group led by Oxford’s former vice-chancellor Sir Colin Lucas, now Warden of Rhodes House. This, it should be stressed, is a regular check-up of their health, but the activities of the Lucas group has taken on a new significance because of the crisis at Wycliffe. Its report is expected in the summer.<\/p>\n