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C A M B R I D G E T H E O L O G I C A L F E D E R AT I O N

2 0 1 0 – 2 0 1 1T H E Y E A R I N R E V I E W

Contents

Foreword from the Bishop of Leicester 3

Principal’s Welcome 4

Bishop Peter Walker 8

Highlights of the YearApologetics Conference 13

Midsummer Garden Party 14

Newmarket Open Door Project 15

Marking Twenty years of the

Manchester Project 16

Missions, Placements and Exchanges 19

Easter missions and pilgrimages 2011 19

Study leave in Japan 20

Church of the Holy Apostles, New York 22

Yale Exchange 23Westcott House Conferences 2012 23

Theological Conversations‘Rev’ actor and creator visit Westcott 24

Women in Priesthood 26

Dean of St Edmundsbury 26

Theology lived out – Rosalind Lane 27

Debating Fresh Expressions 29

Templeton Prizewinners 31

New DevelopmentsWestcott’s Key Priorities 33

Remembering Westcott 35

Westcott House Gifts and Mementos 36

Ember List 2011 37

Staff Contacts 38

Members of the Governing Council2010 - 2011 39

Page

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“It remains a great privilege to be associated with Westcott

House as the Chair of the Council. The challenges facing

higher education generally and training for ordained ministry

in the Church of England in particular are complex. And yet

Westcott House has remained an adventurous, courageous,

innovative and ambitious institution continually seeking out

new opportunities to face the changes of each passing year

while continuing to be outward looking. At the heart of the

life of Westcott remains a deep commitment to disciplines of

prayer and the Eucharistic life which has shaped the House

from the beginning. Centred on these unchanging essentials,

the whole community is set free to explore difference, diversity

and indeed Anglican identity in a global setting. Increasingly

Westcott House has become the focus for conferences and

conversations about church and society as well as for

explorations of some of the most challenging theological

questions. But above all to experience Westcott is to know

something of the joy and the liberation of the gospel.

Westcott House appears to have discovered how to set people

free to become the very best of themselves. As you read this

year’s Review I hope you will catch a flavour of what that means

for so many people who share the life of this rich and varied

community.”

The Rt Revd Tim Stevens is Bishop of Leicester and has beenChair of the Council of Westcott House since 2007

Foreword from the Bishop of Leicester

2010 – 2011 THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Each year the Westcott community is different, and

this past one has been influenced both by the new

ordinands and the large number of new staff.

Ordinand year groups seem to develop a character

of their own, and this past year’s intake of thirty-

three men and women has engaged in the life of the

House from the start, with new initiatives in the

realms of sport, social celebrations, and community

service emerging as part of our community life.

The community also seems to have been even more

diverse than ever this year, challenging us to engage

creatively with differences, and to learn and grow

together.

New DirectionsA number of staff changes have resulted in fresh

ideas and new directions. Will Lamb, the Vice-

Principal and Tutor in New Testament, immediately

made a huge difference to the life of the House, in

particular through his teaching and organisational

expertise, and a calm wisdom that is very welcome.

Andrew Davison, the new Tutor in Doctrine and

Assistant Director of Studies, has made a great

contribution to teaching in the Federation, and also

in-house, where he has teamed up with Jeff Phillips

for an introductory course in philosophy. Andrew

has had a number of books published this year,

including the controversial and acclaimed

For the Parish. With Dave Male on the staff as our

Tutor in Pioneer Ministry, we have had another

opportunity to engage with differences! Of course,

we discover that they agree more than they

disagree, and you can see some fruits of their

engagement in this Review.

Victoria Espley, who started as Finance and

Operations Manager (now Bursar) in October 2010,

has immediately made an impact both on the

financial management of the House and the

organisation of the administrative operations.

Heather Kilpatrick has served for a year already as

College Administrator, Communications Officer

and my PA. She has reshaped our internal

communications, and many aspects of our external

communications, including our new e-Newsletter.

If you are not currently on the mailing list for this

and would like to be, contact Heather on

[email protected]. Andy Griffiths took up a new

post as Chef at Gretton School in Girton and

Adrian Savin has been promoted to Chef Manager.

I am enormously grateful to all the staff, new and

continuing, for their devotion and commitment to

the work and mission of the House.

Principal’s Welcome

The Revd Canon Martin SeeleyPrincipal


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On 29 April the House celebrated the royal wedding, starting with a champagne breakfast and the chance towatch the ceremony on a big screen, followed by Pimm’s, cream teas, croquet and an evening barbecue

Loss of FriendsAlongside the good news and exciting developments, this year has

also been marked by sadness. Bishop Peter Walker, Principal from

1962 to 1972, died in December aged 91. In this issue of the

Review we celebrate Bishop Peter – husband and family man,

scholar, priest – through the reflections of four of the Westcottians

whose lives he touched. You will also find here

the address given by the Archdeacon of

Cambridge at his funeral. We hold Jean in our

prayers. Then in April Frances Mant, who

joined us as a tutor in September, died within

a few short weeks of being diagnosed with

cancer, and just before her 50th birthday. She

had quickly earned the trust and affection of

ordinands and staff, and her death was a

profound shock to the community. We

continue to hold Frances’ husband Jonathan

and children William and Alice in our prayers.

Fee Funding ChallengeThe year has also been dominated by the dramatic changes facing

higher education, and in particular the increase in university fees

taking effect in 2012. We are delighted that the Bishop of

Sheffield’s report on the future of funding for theological education

recognises the continuing importance for a number of ordinands to

study on university taught Theology degrees, including the

Theological and Religious Studies Tripos (Cambridge BA) and the

part-university taught BTh. However, central church funds cannot

support the whole cost, and we need to raise additional funds to

enable access to these important and demanding routes for

candidates who will most benefit from them. For the Tripos,

Church funding will pay for half the £9,000 fee, with us needing to

find the other £4,500 per student per year. For the BTh we will

expect to need an additional £1,500 per ordinand each year. I have

been very grateful that some Cambridge colleges have agreed to

direct historic funds for ordination training to provide bursaries for

some of these ordinands, but we need to find more sources of

funding. We admit about five ordinands a year on Tripos, and

about ten on the BTh. This year, as last, half of those taking Tripos

gained firsts, including one starred first. It is quite clear that the

pressure is on for Westcott, for which

the relationship with the University of

Cambridge is foundational, to secure a

range of resources to continue to

provide the very high quality of

theological learning that is central to

what we offer the Church. There is

information about ways to help this

effort in this Review.

CelebrationsThere has of course been much to

celebrate during the year. In October it was announced that

Donna Lazenby, a final year ordinand and now curate in the

Diocese of Southwark, and Ben King, an alumnus and now

Assistant Professor of Church History at the University of the

South, Tennessee had both been awarded Templeton Foundation

Awards for Theological Promise. Donna organised a highly

successful Apologetics Conference at Westcott in December, a

review of which is included in this publication. Ben King has been

instrumental in building connections between Westcott and the

School of Theology at the University of the South (Sewanee).

One result of that is a preaching conference to be held 2-5 July

2012 at Westcott in partnership with Bill Brosend, Professor of

Homiletics at Sewanee, and Program Director of the Episcopal

Preaching Foundation. We have also started another new


5

Wittenberg

Mick Ellis and Gillian Trinder in Wittenberg

international connection with the Predigerseminar at Wittenberg;

my family and I visited in February and a group of Westcott

ordinands also visited in June. Their model of theological training

has some interesting possibilities for us to explore, especially in

terms of continuing ministerial development.

Among our many and varied guests this past year we welcomed the

Rt Revd Stephen Conway as the new Bishop of Ely, and witnessed

the consecration of Nick Holtam as the new Bishop of Salisbury.

Both have made, and are continuing to make, significant

contributions to the life and future of the House and we are very

grateful. Most recently Bishop Stephen addressed a London alumni

dinner, held on the feast day for Bishop Westcott, in the Jerusalem

Chamber in Westminster Abbey. In the course of his challenging

and inspiring address he remarked that “What counts at Westcott is

not whether it is a high church or a low church college. It is not

altitude but attitude which matters. In a Church with tribal

tendencies, it seeks not to define itself over against anything except

unfaithfulness, injustice, plain stupidity and the fallacy that one can

save people by cruelty”. We are very thankful to Stephen Stavrou

and Richard Bastable for organising this and other London alumni

events. New alumni groups are in the offing too, in Oxford,

Manchester and Lincoln; please be in touch if you want

information about these or want to set one up in your region.

On 14 May, sixty of us gathered at St Luke’s Longsight to celebrate

the 20th anniversary of the Manchester Project. The Bishop of

Middleton presided and Bishop Rupert Hoare preached at a

wonderful occasion of thanksgiving for a project that has gone

from strength to strength, giving Westcott ordinands a vital and

rich immersion in urban parish life. Much of the current success is

down to the skill and commitment of Simon Gatenby, rector of

Brunswick Church and the Westcott tutor in Manchester. We are

delighted that a number of married ordinands, alongside the single

ordinands who have been in the past, are taking advantage of this

formational opportunity.


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The Revd Canon Dr Gideon Byamugisha, the first practising religious leader inAfrica to publicly declare himself HIV-positive, gave the 2011 Bray Lecture at Westcott on 18 May entitled ‘Communities confronting AIDS: is Missio Deithe missing paradigm to end HIV- and AIDS-related stigma?’

Bishop Stephen at Westcott Ascension Day 2011


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A New ConfidenceThe celebrations in Manchester stand alongside the evident

increase in commitment to social transformation among ordinands.

Taken with the negative and positive responses by Christians to

some of the current Government’s policies, this leads me to hope

that the Church’s self-absorption and long retreat from its position

in the public square is starting to reverse. As part of our

developing involvement in serving the wider church, we hosted a

significant colloquium in February looking at faith and the ‘Good

Neighbourhood’, engaging with aspects of the Government’s ‘Big

Society’ agenda. The day brought together faith leaders, policy

makers and practitioners, and demonstrated something of a

recovery of nerve and the necessity for the churches to re-connect

with the fundamental questions about our public life. There are

other examples of confident involvement like this around the

country, which is a good sign that we are beginning to recognise

the harm that has been done by conflating ‘mission’ with ‘growth’.

Mission is what matters; growth may follow but faithfulness has

priority.

Of course clergy and laity in parishes up and down the land have

never forgotten this. My own experience of parish life suggests

that growth is often a consequence of mission, but cannot be its

goal. In ten years in the Isle of Dogs, the congregation grew

significantly, and faster than the population. But that was not our

aim, which was rather to worship God and witness to God’s love in

the community; that was what being faithful meant to us. The

growth was a by-product, by which God helped us be and do what

we believed we were there for. The Eucharist was at the centre,

and the self-giving of the Eucharist fed and inspired self-giving in

the neighbourhood and wider community, in works of generosity

and justice.

Dare we imagine that now, across the Church, we are recovering

enough confidence, and letting go of enough anxiety about

numbers and money, to have the courage to get on with the joyful

and terrifying task of proclaiming God’s kingdom? I am delighted

that at Westcott I think we can take the risk, because we have

indeed already glimpsed God’s glory and goodness.

Good Neighbourhood Colloquium in February


Bishop Peter Walker

It was with great sadness that we learnt ofthe death of Peter Walker, Principal ofWestcott House from 1962-72, on28 December 2010 after a brief illness andin his 92nd year. His funeral service tookplace on Tuesday 11 January 2011 at2.30pm in Grantchester Parish Church.

The address delivered on that occasion by the Archdeaconof Cambridge, John Beer, is reproduced here.

We come, each of us, first to say ‘thank you’ to God for Peter, for

that divine shaping of his life which made him so unforgettable, and

then to acknowledge his particular influence upon our life’s journey.

Of course, any dying confronts us as a kind of larceny, as we take in

what RS Thomas calls in another context ‘the aggression of fact’,

the reality of death and separation, but we also understand the

seemliness of a long life that has drawn to its natural close. And we

come here, to this beautiful place, in the context of the resurrection

hope that death can never be the last word on the meaning of this

life. The words of the service today say, explain, everything that

counts, and yet we must, of course, speak of this remarkable man,

Peter Knight Walker.

His obituaries have said, and will say, something of Peter’s wide-

ranging life, and of his ministry in the Church of England he loved,

and a more studied, detailed assessment awaits the memorial service

in February, but the ground-bass of all else that there’s time to say

today was the God in whom Peter trusted, and the contemplative

life of prayer which fed his ministry of care. On that ground-bass,

all the counterpoint, in Bonhoeffer’s phrase, the polyphony in

Peter’s life, was enabled to flourish in all its wholeness.

Peter was born in Leeds, the twin of Peggy, whose children, Bridget

and Henry, later on, in their childhood, remembered their uncle as

kindly and attentive. He was a clever, scholarship boy who went

from Leeds Grammar School in due course to Oxford to read

Greats, the Classics course, but who, mid way, was ‘called up’ as a

naval cadet. For much of the war he served in destroyers defending

convoys in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Indian

Ocean. Towards the end, stationed in Madras, he acquired a taste

for really hot Indian food, and in his last years of life he had such

fun when my wife and I took him and Jean to our local ‘Indian’,

where he always ordered the hottest curry in the house.

After a short curacy, he was first Fellow and Dean of Corpus Christi

College here in Cambridge, and then Principal of Westcott House

where, for ten years, he exercised a remarkable influence on large

numbers of ordinands, at a time of turmoil and rapid change in

Church and society. Peter’s vocational wisdom, often larded with

humour, helped to nudge minds, to inspire, to encourage crucial

resolve, or to prevent too hasty a decision to give up. And, he

managed as well to write the odd letter! In this, of course, his

output was prodigious, and many of us will still have our own

precious collection of PKW’s letters. He wrote to keep

remembrance alive, and the words on the page were the product of

an interceding prayerfulness. Peter loved to talk to those who came

into his life, whoever they were, and his attentiveness strangely

energised them, endowed them with value, as it were. I still meet

Peter & Jean Walker

8

people who once met Peter years ago on a retreat, in a parish, at

supper, or some other context, and who’d remembered the

encounter as crucial, or simply with great affection. And for many it

was the beginning of a longer-term friendship. And friendships old

and new, for so long, sustained him in life.

In 1972, Peter left Westcott to go to Oxford to be Suffragan Bishop

of Dorchester, but behind the scenes a different sort of friendship

was blossoming, and so we come, of course, to dear Jean. In Peter’s

Westcott days, one or two of the braver ordinands had gently urged

on the bachelor Principal in this regard, and we rejoice that in due

time, out of this deep friendship of love, came so much good. We

all of us love other people uniquely, of course, but Peter loved Jean

as only he could, he depended on her, even more so towards the

end, and those of us who’ve had the privilege to know and love

Peter, owe to Jean our profound gratitude for her wonderful

generosity and love in being willing to share him with us.

When Peter and Jean left Oxford to come ‘home’ to Ely as our

Bishop, we knew that his ministry would be marked as much by his

quality of pastoral care as by his strategic vision. Peter was

intuitive, not one perhaps for too much ‘process’, as we’ve learnt to

call it, but he often ‘sniffed the wind’, and had the courage and

insight to resource those with new ideas for mission and ministerial

training, to grasp nettles about finance and giving, and to improve

the Church’s communication with the secular world. He trusted

people in ordinary parishes across the Fens, or in the cities, was

strenuously attentive in visiting them, knowing them as best he

could, and he was remembered for being, not the same as them, but

a man deeply devout, caring, worthy of their loyalty and friendship.

Though he possessed a steeliness when crises arose, (and some

decisions and responsibilities came at great cost) he retained a

generous optimism about God and people, which allowed him to

trust them in faith, and so to sit light to distinctions about who was

in the Faith and who wasn’t.

In due course, after some years’ retirement in Oxford, Peter and

Jean came here to Grantchester, where he loved the stones and

wood of this building, whose patina seemed to have been formed in

part by the relentless prayers of centuries-worth of those who’d

found Godly meaning here, solace and a home. He loved the

rhythms of the early Sunday service and assisted here liturgically,

until more recently when he became too frail. Then, and before

retirement, we shall remember with gratitude his preaching. Peter’s

style in his latter years often centred simply upon a single word or

phrase about God or the world, as he gently prised apart meaning,

and slowly squeezed words dry for the last drop of sustenance or

encouragement. And he had a great gift and reputation as a

Memorial Service preacher, able to discern the real essence of the

people he’d known. At Westcott, we’d remembered, I think, a

different register, the quality of his reasoning, his sharp focus upon

the heart of the matter, often in response to some part of the

Church’s life which had provoked the college community at the

time. When he was our Bishop here in Ely, and no doubt in Oxford

too, our ears became attuned to a rather denser style from time to

time, as parenthetical clauses formed an orderly queue, in patient

expectation of finding their honoured place in the sentence, as it

came to its appointed end; every word precious, relevant, but the

meaning demanded of us work, attentiveness. Yet Peter’s scholarly

learning was never used simply to bully or bluster. The words, like

the God he believed in, could look after themselves; and so they

were spoken as an offering, not as a prelude to confrontation.

Peter had a remarkable gift for encouragement of those who, by

design or accidentally, came into view. It was a generosity of spirit

which matched the generous quality of his theological thinking.

He liked to seek out all sorts and conditions of talented people –

anyone who might shine new light on the great religious enterprise,

and whose goodness, beauty and truth might thereby enrich the

world’s store of Godly understanding. And so, he encouraged

artists, writers, poets, politicians. Yet, in doing this, he wasn’t

patronising such people by implying that their insights were

religious. Rather, he saw opportunity in their work to encourage an

often reluctant Church to extend its own limited boundaries of

truth, wisdom or beauty.

And, as with his ordinands, years before, so many became friends,

not because he lacked self-containment and was predatory of their

artistic enthusiasm, or their ability to energise him, but because he

regarded their humanity. And here, I feel a Peter Walker-ism

coming on, for the word ‘regarded’, in all its senses, involved his

attention to them, his quality of noticing or looking, his penetrative

regard.

In being such a person, such a priest, ‘a people person’, Peter would,

and could, talk to anyone, though he wasn’t of course a back-

slapping extrovert who saw little, and heard even less. He simply

wanted to listen, and you’d remember him when you’d met him, and

in his prime, he’d remember you the next time, usually by name.

His personally quiet manner was all of a piece with his theological

understanding of a God whose mysterious being was only in part to

be discerned, explained, even by the precious words through which,

down the centuries, the Church had found agreement. He urged a

healthy respect for the provisionality of doctrine, he knew the


9


power of moth and rust to corrupt certainty, and, in such a brash

and noisy world, he urged the wisdom of reticence. And although

he was always concerned for good order and protocol, he was

sometimes courageous in defending those who were rather cross-

grained, or who, at the time, seemed to many to be urging the

Church down dangerous roads towards truth. And he did it because

he knew his God was immense, and generous enough to keep faith

with a Church that was often in danger of mislaying God’s kind of

faithfulness.

And so, as we think of dear Jean, Henry, and Sue Holgate who’d

served Peter so faithfully during the Ely years and since, we

commend Peter to his calling God who is faithful, and who speaks

bespoke to each of us. There was always in the Peter I knew,

lurking behind the absolutely proper concern for gravitas, an impish

twinkle in the eye, that relishing of a certain spirit of undermining,

which I suspect had a complex hinterland, but which made him

chuckle, and which must claim a non-negotiable place in the Peter

Walker story. That’s why I finish with a bit of his beloved Auden, in

which a human soul pleads with its body for a quick death

when the time comes – words which Peter loved to quote,

but which delicate ears must forgive for the in-delicacy

of its last line :

Time, we both know, will decay You, and already

I’m scared of our divorce: I’ve seen some horrid ones.

Remember: when Le bon Dieu says to You Leave him!,

Please, please, for His sake and mine, pay no attention

To my piteous Don’ts, but bugger off quickly.

In our love for Peter, we thank God that, in Auden’s words again,

when the time came for God to ‘abrupt his earthly function’, a

‘speedy, painless dormition’ was possible. Deo gratias for PKW,

then, and for every life which, by the grace of God, he was able to

touch for good.

10

PKW – Reflections

Brian Hebblethwaite

Westcott 1962

I moved into Westcott in

September 1962, the same year

Peter Walker took over as

Principal. We all soon realised

how lucky we were to have such

a gentle and sympathetic, yet

astute, spiritual director as Peter.

Those of us doing the Tripos

that year were given a pretty

free reign, but by the second

year, when we had to tackle

GOE [General Ordination

Exam] and all the in-house stuff,

we learned much from Peter’s wise and practical direction. By then I

thought of him as a friend. Often I would go and collect a packet of

chips from the King Street chippy and take them up to Peter’s room

for a late night chat. He was very tolerant of our occasional

waywardness, as when I left a Quiet Day in outrage at the

Franciscan Director and went to the theatre instead. I don’t think I

ever helped myself to Peter’s whisky as Rupert Hoare did, but I

drank quite a lot of it. He was very patient with us. I remember

when he invited Jean Ferguson, then of the University Counselling

Service, to introduce us to the methods of group dynamics. It was

very non-directive. We sat round in silence and Jean waited for

someone to say something to get the discussion going. We all

refused to say a word. I can’t remember how long this went on.

None of us of course knew that one day Jean would become Peter’s

dear wife.

Chapel was very much the centre of our life at Westcott. One of

things I recall was how much laughter there was in Chapel, not

least on the occasion Peter read an unprepared Old Testament

lesson full of the most unpronounceable names and got completely

tongue-tied. When I was Archivist I included a spoof answer of

Peter’s to the question, ‘What’s the minimum number of services we

have to attend?’

Peter: ‘Well, can we look at it this way: none of them is

actually compulsory, except those which we ought to

feel obliged to attend – that is, we ought to give serious

consideration to the possibility of always making a

point of being in Chapel when anyone else is there,

as the corporate spirit of the House depends on us all

looking at the question from each other’s point of view,

so that, without sitting lightly to the matter, one ought to

think in terms of meeting together in Chapel not

less than 32 times a week including meditations, unless

you want to get a clout over the lug-hole from me.’

Peter remained a much loved friend over the years. He was the first

person I turned to on the two occasions when my life story hit rock

bottom. His wise, quiet counsel kept me on the rails. The last time

I saw him was at the Honorary Degree ceremony last year, when he

and Jean were in the Senate House for Peter’s favourite poet

Geoffrey Hill’s award of an Honorary DLitt. I think of Peter nearly

every day when I sit watching cricket on TV and glance up at the

Piper print of Dorchester Abbey he gave me that hangs on my

sitting room wall.

Mike Law

Westcott 1965

In my first term at Westcott in

1965, I spent an hour with PK

– there was a long silence and

I began to speak and PK

listened and when I left I felt

understood. It was my first

pastoral encounter.

A year later I approached him

about getting married. Our

respective families and

Diocesan Bishop were opposed

to the idea. PK said, “Go

ahead, and I will support you”.

He conducted the nuptial eucharist at St Edward’s Church in

Cambridge in 1966. Over the years we remained in touch. When

he became Bishop of Ely, knowing he was there (especially when

the going was tough) was a solace and support. He was a true

Father in God.


11

Owen Spencer-Thomas

Westcott 1970

I was a student at Westcott House

in Peter Walker’s time (1970-72),

and one Sunday morning I

remember being woken up by a

frantic knocking on my bedroom

door. It was Peter. He explained

that the previous evening, he had

started to run his bath. However,

the Water Board had chosen that

very moment to turn off the mains

outside for a couple of hours.

Peter abandoned the idea of

having a bath and went to bed. The next morning he woke up to

find water pouring out from underneath the bathroom door,

cascading down the main staircase, through the dining hall, into

the kitchen, and down into the cellar below.

His simple request was could I assist with the clearing up as he was

rostered to celebrate the Eucharist? I happily obliged and got to

work. When he got back from the service, I’d cleared up most of

the mess, but Peter was terribly ill at ease all day. The rest of us

thought it was the biggest joke of the term.

But a big problem remained – how to diffuse the matter and put

Peter’s mind at rest. I got out my Concordance, and after much

thought came up with Psalm 42, 7: ‘Deep calls to deep at the roar of

your waterfalls; all your waves and billows have swept over me’.

I wrote the quote on a piece of paper and pinned it to his door.

Within minutes, I heard some shuffling outside my room and

opened the door to find the following quotation pinned to it: ‘The

Lord sitteth above the water floods; yea, the Lord remains King for

ever. Ps 20, 10. Thanks to OS-T.’

Maggie and I have a son who has severe autism and can neither

speak, nor read, nor write and he is unable to communicate his

feelings properly. In 1988, the local authority strongly advised us

to place nine-year-old Huw in a specialist boarding school on the

other side of the country, in Devon. Before he left we felt strongly

that he should be confirmed to give him a link with his local

church.

However, that raised a major question. With no language, could

Huw really understand what was happening and take responsibility

as a confirmed Christian? I explained our circumstances to Peter

and asked if he would be prepared to confirm Huw. He agreed.

We were delighted. It was in Peter’s character to risk being wrong

rather than to exclude someone from reaching their potential within

the Church.

What followed was the most beautiful and informal confirmation

service I have ever attended. The congregation sang the hymn ‘Just

as I am’. Huw giggled. It was a familiar tune. After the singing, he

had to renew the vows made for him when he was baptised.

Without speech he could say nothing, so I answered on his behalf.

Like most people with autism, Huw tends to avoid people and finds

close proximity very threatening. On this occasion he seemed to

sense the importance of the service, and did something completely

out of character. He put an arm forward and clasped Peter’s hand.

Yes, he ‘turns to Christ’, he ‘renounces evil’ and he ‘believes in God,

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Without any fuss, Huw then

allowed Peter to lay his hands on his head. He received the gift of

the Holy Spirit and became a confirmed member of the Church.

Since that memorable day, Peter would regularly ask me how Huw

was getting on.

It was instances like these which made Peter so different and so

lovable.

David Reindorp

Westcott 1981

29 years ago I was at Westcott. Because

I had been in business and then trained

as a social worker the feeling was it

would be a good idea to read theology,

which I did at Trinity.

As finals hoved into view, years of

unresolved ‘stuff’ came to the surface and

I had a breakdown. Bishop Peter took all

that in his stride when ordaining me. I realise now what a risk it

was. One of Bishop Peter’s astonishing strengths was dealing with

all of us who didn’t ‘fit’ moulds. I have never known another priest

who had such a diversity of disciples (he took Mark Thatcher’s

wedding!).

Suzy and I never forgot his coming to dinner when I was a curate

on the Arbury estate – and he taught my eldest son how to make a

point with his glasses! His humour was a joy. Then he appointed

me vicar of Waterbeach. At my induction, knowing one third of

the parish were army, he wore his medals. Five of them! That was

another side to him.

He was holy in an enormously attractive sense, he and Jean cared

and loved. I have his letters where he wrote round the edges! I am

in a parish that has nearly 800 on the electoral roll. It averages 105

children and 210 adults every Sunday. We have a baptism, a

wedding, funeral/memorial service every week. I write this not to

boast (Bishop Peter would hate that) but because Bishop Peter made

it possible for me to do this. Not a week goes by when I do not

think of him.


12

A Christian apologetics conference was held in Westcott House

7-8 December 2010. The event was organised by Donna Lazenby

(Westcott House ordinand) and speakers included Alister McGrath

(Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education, and Head of the

Centre for Theology, Religion, and Culture at King’s College

London), Bishop Nick Baines (then Bishop of Croydon, now

Bishop of Bradford), Ruth Gledhill (The Times religion

correspondent), Alison Milbank (Associate Professor of Literature

and Theology at the University of Nottingham and Priest Vicar at

Southwell Minster), Graham Ward (Samuel Fergusson Professor of

Philosophical Theology and Ethics at the University of

Manchester, and Head of the School of Arts, Histories and

Cultures), and Andrew Davison (Tutor in Doctrine at Westcott

House). The conference was well attended by clergy from a

variety of Dioceses, academic staff, and ordinands from across the

Theological Federation. The conference recognised that the

relationship between the Christian Church and secular society in

the West today is defined as much by opportunities for innovation

and renewal as by challenge. The six speakers shared their views

of how the Church and wider society can engage meaningfully and

effectively in our world. Representing perspectives from within

the ministry of the Church, across Press and Internet media

platforms, and the theological Academy, the speakers offered their

reflections on what they identify to be the challenges for present

day Church-world relations, and their practical insights concerning

how these challenges might be recognised, met and overcome.

A lively question-and-answer session followed each speaker’s paper,

creating diverse and visionary debate, and allowing the many

valuable perspectives of the audience members to be expressed,

as a fuller picture was built of how the Church can communicate

its message in our times. Emerging themes included the need to be

confident in the power of the gospel to convey its own truth; the

need for Christians, and ministers, to be visibly present in our

communities, by encouraging public festival and ‘beating the

bounds’ of the parish; and the value of paying attention to how the

contemporary imagination (in literature and film) and popular

culture engage with religious ideas.

Those who attended the conference reflected warmly on the

opportunity to gather with fellow ministers and theologians, and

thanked Westcott House for facilitating an event that brought

them into direct contact with professionals working in these

stimulating fields. This conference was an expression of Westcott

House’s ongoing commitment to being a centre for theological

education and excellence, serving ordinands, clergy, and all those

committed to exploring the Church’s life and work.

Donna Lazenby

Curate, Springfield Church, Wallington; with St Michael’s

and All Angels, South Beddington, and St Paul’s, Roundshaw,

Diocese of Southwark

Highlights of the Year

Apologetics Conference

How does today’s Churchengage with today’s world?

Bishop Nick Baines The Revd Dr Andrew Davison The Revd Dr Donna Lazenby Professor Alister McGrath

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

13

The now annual Summer Garden Party took place

this year on Midsummer’s Day. Around 100

ordinands, staff, alumni and friends gathered on the

terrace in the warm sunshine before moving to the

Chapel for a talk and lively discussion on the

subject of ‘Seeking the common good’. The speaker

was Professor Philip Sheldrake, formerly a member

of Westcott’s staff in the 1990s and now Senior

Research Fellow. Tea and cakes in the garden

followed, with lively conversation between old and

new acquaintances, and the day ended with

Evensong and supper.

Midsummer Garden Party

SAVE THE DATEThe garden party in 2012will be on Tuesday 19 June


14

An exciting new initiative at Westcott House this year has been to

set up formal links with Newmarket Open Door, a Churches

Together Project.

Newmarket Open Door came out of a Lent course almost fifteen

years ago. What began as a small idea has flourished into housing

for people aged 16-30 who have previously lived in care or foster

homes, or who have been living on the streets. As part of the

Open Door charity there is also a food bank facility and a furniture

project. Local people on benefits can buy donated household

goods including large items of furniture at cheap rates and have

them delivered by the volunteer delivery drivers. Supermarkets

and churches donate food that is then sold from the dedicated

shop or distributed to local people and Jimmy’s Night Shelter in

Cambridge.

Westcott students are involved in several areas of the Open Door

charity. A designated sitting room has been furnished for the twice

weekly film night. Residents choose the film schedule and

contribute to the topics for discussion afterwards. A small group

regularly travel into Cambridge on a Wednesday night to join our

community for Evening Prayer and a meal in the dining hall,

followed by a trip to the ADC Theatre or the cinema. For the

summer, we have planned a visit to the Cambridge Botanic Garden

and a punting trip with a picnic on the riverbank. We hope to

develop this social link into an informal mentor scheme where

residents can meet individually with an ordinand.

One of the Westcott tutor groups has committed to giving their

time a morning each term to help sort the food deliveries that

arrive in the warehouse. This has been an excellent team building

activity for us and we have felt much rewarded by how much

difference those few hours make to the Foodbank warehouse.

The Westcott Café, run by a small team of dedicated students,

provides home-baked cakes and fresh coffee for members of the

Westcott community. This year, the Café has raised £400 for the

Open Door Project. These funds, and more than £200 raised by

the Christmas raffle, have been set aside for literacy and numeracy

materials and for a proposed new Cookery School Scheme where

residents will learn to ‘Cook for a Quid’.

An awareness raising event took place on 15 June: Newmarket

Open Door at Westcott House – a garden party that was attended

by trustees of the charity and current volunteers, as well as past and

present residents who talked about how the project has helped

them. We were delighted that their President, Terry Waite, joined

us for the evening.

Details of Newmarket Open Door

(Registered Charity No. 1070554) can be found on-line

at www.newmarketopendoor.org.uk.

Colette Annesley-Gamester

Newmarket Open Door Project

Listen, I am standing at the door,knocking; if you hear my voiceand open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and youwith me. Revelation 3:20

David Smith, Joel Love, Colette Annesley-Gamester


15


Marking twenty years of the Manchester Project

On Saturday 14 May, former ordinands, placement supervisors

and congregation members from participating parishes met

together to give God thanks for 20 years of the Cambridge-

Manchester Project.

Held at St Luke’s, Longsight in East Manchester, the celebration

included a eucharist at which the Bishop of Middleton presided,

and Bishop Rupert Hoare (former Principal at Westcott House)

preached.

In the 20 years that this partnership between Westcott House and

the Diocese of Manchester has existed, over 200 ordinands have

experienced and enjoyed an extended placement in parishes in

Manchester – originally in the east of the city, but more recently

taking advantage of the breadth of experiences that are available

throughout the whole. Housed in a diocesan property, groups of up

to five students live together in community for between six and

eight weeks, appreciating the different contexts of both where they

are living, as well as experiencing the rhythm of parish life wherever

they are placed.

Rupert Hoare was intimately involved in the inception and

development of the Project, and writes of that time: ‘In the 1980s

Westcott was somewhat slow off the mark in making proper

provision in urban training for its ordinands. Ripon College,

Cuddesdon had already established its presence in Sheffield, the

Durham colleges were committed to Gateshead. Following the

impact made by the ‘Faith in the City’ report on urban deprivation

in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, it was imperative our ordinands had

direct hands-on experience of the urban world. There was as much

learning to be done there as in the lecture rooms of Cambridge.

Having worked in East Manchester I was very aware of the contrast

between Jesus Lane, Cambridge and the Ashton New Road,

Manchester. I was also convinced that a nation was (and still is) to

be judged by how it relates to its most deprived communities,

within which students would find themselves learning from people

who were pure gold.’

Comments from those who have been part of the Project clearly

illustrate the value to both ordinand and parish of the undertaking.

As Stephen Edwards (Wt 1993) reflects: ‘It is the importance of

social aspects of parish ministry that remain my strongest memory;

weekly luncheon clubs, bingo, drinking, eating, and every Sunday

singing karaoke with the local funeral director in the pub. All these

things were not distractions from church but integral strands of

pastoral care.

Celebratory eucharist held at St Luke’sBishops Rupert (left) and Mark (right) with Martin Seeley

16


James Stewart, a Westcott ordinand who was deaconed this summer,

wrote of his time in Manchester: ‘I remember my time at St Agnes,

Longsight with great fondness. As an ordinand from the rural

Diocese of Norwich it was useful to spend time in a multicultural

parish with one of the largest Islamic populations in the diocese.

In being involved in a wide range of activities – from meeting

parents preparing for the baptism of their children to helping with

the annual celebration of Corpus Christi – it was possible to see

how community and faith groups integrated, thereby creating a

greater sense of unity in the neighbourhood. Yet pastoral

relationships with individual parishioners were particularly valuable.

Making connections and talking about faith whilst driving one of

the parishioners home from daily Evening Prayer made for happy

times. As an ardent Manchester City fan it soon became very clear

that she did not approve of my choice of red jumper, which I had

naively chosen to wear in the parish – it was soon replaced with a

pale blue one.’

‘At a time when many training colleges are in retreat, both the

Diocese’s and Westcott House’s commitment to this ongoing

partnership is a great encouragement,’ writes the Revd Simon

Gatenby, the current tutor for the Project. ‘To my knowledge the

only training opportunity which links the Northern and Southern

provinces, the project has enabled many current clergy, wherever

they have been called, to also gain a deeper understanding and

appreciation of the urban context. As a window into the

Manchester Diocese in particular, encouraged by their placement

experience, a good number of former students find their way back

to serving here after ordination too. In football parlance (perhaps

appropriate when the celebration was held on Cup final day), it

really is win, win.’

Westcott staff and ordinands with Rector of St Luke’s Peter Clark

Bishop Mark with ordinand Catherine Staziker

17

40

Holy week at Canterbury Cathedral

18

Missions, Placements and Exchanges

Easter missions and pilgrimages 2011

A number of Westcott ordinands were involved in a widerange of activities during their Easter vacation.

Catherine Tucker and Gillian Trinder joined the JesusCollege Chaplaincy Easter pilgrimage trip to the Sinaidesert. The trip included a visit to St Catherine’s Monastery– the site of the burning bush – and a climb of Mount Sinaiin the footsteps of Moses.

A group spent Holy Week in residence at CanterburyCathedral gaining insight into the ministry of a cathedral incomparison with a parish church. A particular highlight washaving tea in the garden of the Old Palace with ArchbishopRowan Williams on Holy Saturday, when he told them thata priest has to have the patience to hold diversity and toextend the welcome of God to all people.

A further five students and the Vice-Principal, Will Lamb,joined parishioners in Winchmore Hill for a series of eventsincluding worship, outreach and children’s activities.On Maundy Thursday, complete with their ‘Trainee vicar’t-shirts, the ordinands shined shoes for commuters arrivingat Winchmore Hill station in an echo of the story of Jesuswashing his disciples feet as an act of loving service at theLast Supper.

Another eleven Westcottians joined the Parish of Mirfieldfor Holy Week. Their programme included giving out hotcross buns on the high street, also wearing ‘’Trainee vicar’t-shirts, and leading a holiday club for 35 children using avariety of activities including storytelling, games, crafts,action songs and godly play.

19

Tea with Archbishop Rowan Williams

Winchmore HillSinai

Study leave in JapanThanks to a generous scholarship from the Spalding Trust, I was

able to spend Michaelmas Term of 2010 in Japan. Lest this seem

something of a strange place to send an Anglican ordinand, I

should point out that my PhD research comprises a comparison

between Pseudo-Dionysius’ doctrine of God and the doctrine of

Buddha of the Japanese patriarch Shinran Shonin. My supervisor

and I felt that it would be worth spending a term consolidating

my Japanese language skills on an intensive course, and Nihon

University in Tokyo was offering just that.

I was met at the airport with customary Japanese hospitality and

taken to the block of flats in Setagaya Ward which I would share

with my fellow students, a mixture of recent Cambridge graduates

and undergraduates from Sweden, Germany and Finland. As the

oldest and most experienced in the ways of Japan, having first lived

there some eight years ago, I ended up as surrogate uncle to our

little community. The non-Cambridge students in particular were

rather surprised to find themselves living with a seminarian, and we

ended up having interesting and often quite deep conversations.

On Sundays, a few fellow students joined me in exploring various

Anglican churches in the city. It may interest the higher

churchmen among us to know that the Japanese Anglican Church

is properly called the Nihon Seikokai, ‘the Holy Catholic Church

of Japan.’ We were welcomed by the English speaking

congregation at St Alban’s, at St Andrew’s Cathedral and by

Fr Kevin of the beautiful St Luke’s International Hospital Chapel,

among others. I was pleased to stumble upon a meticulously

celebrated High Mass at St Stephen’s and the following week to

see the Bishop consecrate with due ceremonial their new state-of-

the-art church building. Theirs was an especially thriving church,

packed full of young and old. Their activities including running a

soup kitchen for the homeless, putting on jumble sales redolent of

English country parish life, and keeping up a very presentable

youth choir. This last was recruited in part from their attached

Anglican girls’ school next door. Suffice it to say that the Church

in Tokyo seemed alive and well.

When I was not cramming Japanese characters, training at the

Aikido dojo or exploring churches, I spent time making contact

with Buddhist scholars and faithful from Shinran’s True Pure Land

sect. Academics from the Pure Land Buddhist Ryukoku and Otani

universities in Kyoto received me warmly and seemed genuinely

interested in my research. So did the Revd Professor Michael Pye,

latterly of Clare College and Tübingen, but now ordained deacon

and running the Christian Institute for the Study of Japanese

Religions in Kyoto. He kindly introduced me to a young American

scholar just completing his PhD at Otani before returning to the

States to practise as a Buddhist minister. It was good to compare

notes with someone from another tradition striving, like me, to

work out how to combine academic and pastoral ministry.

The earthquake in March rather overshadowed the fond memories

of the term I spent there, but I am glad to say that none of the

friends I made in Tokyo were directly affected. In response to those

events, we organised a service in Selwyn College Chapel in both

English and Japanese, also inviting contributions from local

Buddhist ministers. Some 120 people, mostly Japanese, attended.

At that point, I understood how my time learning Japanese and

exploring Japanese Buddhism can contribute to my Christian

ministry. Obscure though my studies may seem, I am most grateful

for being given the chance to pursue them.

Tom Plant


Tom Plant at Kamakura

20


21

Shrine steps at Kamakura

Church of the Holy Apostles,New YorkDuring the Michaelmas Term of 2010 I spent seven weeks on

placement at the Church of the Holy Apostles, Chelsea, New

York. During this period I was resident at General Theological

Seminary (a few blocks away from the church).

Holy Apostles centres itself on the Parish Eucharist

and social outreach is a fundamental part of its

mission. The church has a number of groups

carrying this work out. However, the most

significant project is the Holy Apostles Soup

Kitchen. The soup kitchen is the largest in New

York and serves over 1,200 meals at lunchtime every

weekday. Other services are also provided to

complement the soup kitchen such as referrals for

free haircuts, free legal advice, free healthcare and a

range of other voluntary services.

I spent several mornings a week volunteering in the

soup kitchen. The volunteers’ coordinator ensured that I

experienced a range of different jobs through the placement, which

included welcoming guests, serving drinks, clearing trays, cleaning

tables, and acting as a runner for the people serving food. Being

involved with the soup kitchen and witnessing its work was an

invaluable experience. My other primary involvement with guests

of the soup kitchen was attending a Bible study group on

Wednesday mornings run specifically for them. The group

averaged about ten people and was a good opportunity for Bible

study and fellowship. It could sometimes be a bit of a struggle to

keep the group focused; however, it was moving to see just how

strongly they wished to talk about their faith.

The life of the parish also gave me the opportunity to learn about

another part of the Anglican Communion as well as parish life in

the Episcopal Church. I attended a number of parish activities and

also spent much time in conversation with members of the church.

I was fortunate enough to visit some other churches whilst in

America and meet with other clergy and seminarians. Visits to

other Episcopal churches included St Mary the

Virgin, Times Square; St Ignatius of Antioch on

the Upper West Side; St James’ Church, Madison

Avenue (where the Revd Ryan Fleenor, who was

at Westcott in 2008 on exchange from Yale, is

now curate); and St Thomas, Fifth Avenue. I was

also able to attend worship in the chapel at the

General Theological Seminary and some

lectures.

As well as the exposure to the Episcopal Church

I was able to spend time experiencing and

enjoying the vibrant New York culture.

Highlights included visits to the Metropolitan Opera, Broadway,

Central Park, the New York Botanical Garden and a number of art

galleries.

The whole experience of a different culture and another part of the

Anglican Communion was particularly interesting and enjoyable.

I will certainly look back on my trip to New York as a highlight of

my time at Westcott House.

Ben Eadon

Curate, St Chad’s, Sunderland, Diocese of Durham

Ben Eadon and the Revd Suzanne Toro (Priest Associate, Church of the Holy Apostles)

Queuing outside Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen

Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen

22



Yale ExchangeI didn’t have much of an idea what I was getting myself into when I

applied for the exchange program at Yale Divinity School. I’m deeply

interested in the Anglican Communion and I knew I wanted to learn

more about the Church of England, the ‘mother ship’, so to speak, of

Anglicanism. I had heard good things about Yale’s exchange with

Westcott House so I sent off

my application and hoped for

the best.

Several months later, after too

many long plane flights,

I ended up in Westcott for the

Michaelmas Term. Any doubts

I may have had about the

decision were immediately

laid to rest by the welcome

I received and the way in

which I was warmly made a

part of the community.

There were many memorable

moments for me in the term.

I attended lectures on the

English Reformation in the Faculty of Divinity and then walked back to

Westcott for lunch past some of the very same sights that had been

mentioned in the lecture.

I was on attachment to Christ’s College and learned about the way in

which college life in Cambridge is soaked in Anglicanism. I had terrific

supervisions with tutors across the Cambridge Theological Federation,

who encouraged me to pursue my interests.

But I think what will stay with me the most – and what I hope to take

back to Yale – is the strength of the community at Westcott. Because

everyone lives, eats, prays and works together it’s not easy to get away

from one other. Naturally, there are difficult moments and points of

tension in the community but I was repeatedly impressed by the way in

which the students and staff are committed to living in healthy and life-

giving relationships with each other. The Gospel affirms the relatedness

of all human beings and at Westcott that relatedness is truly lived. The

Thursday night community evenings were my weekly highlight and I will

really miss those, along with a whole new group of terrific friends and

fellow members of the Body of Christ.

Jesse Zink

Jesse performing a comic song at the WestcottChristmas Review 2010

Announcing two Westcott HouseConferences for 2012

Preaching Conference2-5 July 2012With Bill Brosend, Mark Oakley, Ellen Wakeham and

Martin Seeley

Westcott House is organising this in conjunction withthe Episcopal Preaching Foundation and the Schoolof Theology, University of the South (Sewanee).This will be a chance to refresh your preachingthrough exploring different approaches and styles,with opportunities to practice with peers. We willparticularly consider what it is that makes Anglicanpreaching distinctive. The conference will be limitedto 24 participants, plus twelve from the SewaneeD.Min. preaching programme.

A Vision of Priesthood forthe Church of England4-6 September 2012

The 20th anniversary of the ordination of women to the

priesthood provides us with an ideal opportunity to think

more deeply and constructively about the nature of

priesthood in the Church of England, which is not simply

a recipient of the ecclesiology of others, but also has

significant insights to offer. We also believe it is important

to re-envisage priesthood as not only for the church but also

for the world. Therefore we hope this conference will provide

a long overdue opportunity to offer a renewed articulation

of the vision of priesthood that is not captive to recent

ecclesial controversies and that takes into account the

challenges of the present moment in our world.

For further information contact:[email protected]

or visit our website at www.westcott.cam.ac.uk23

THEOLOGICAL CONVERSATIONS

Theological Conversations

Rev actor and writer visit WestcottOn 21 January, actor Tom Hollander and writer James Wood

were the guest speakers at a session for ordinands about the

BBC2 television series Rev. The talk was part of the ‘Life and

Service’ course for Lent Term on preaching and communication.

In conversation with Martin Seeley, Tom and James spoke about

creating the Rev series and the character of Adam, and how their

involvement with the project has broadened their experience of,

and opened their eyes to, the role of the church in today’s

society.

James began by explaining that in order to ensure that the

character of Adam was authentic they started to spend time with a

lot of vicars, hearing about their day-to-day life. This led them to

realise that the show could be about the joys, frustrations,

dilemmas and realities of running an urban, inner city parish. In

Tom’s words, it could tackle the question of “how to square one’s

faith and calling with the realities of the place of the Church of

England in today’s world”. Tom went on to say that “As we

researched, it became clear that even in today’s ‘secular society’ the

vicar is still at the centre of our communities and is therefore a

useful prism through which to view British society as a whole …

particularly the modern, urban, multi-cultural, multi-faith context.

Adam is a traditional Englishman in a changed world.”

Tom emphasised that they were keen to avoid jokes that were at

the expense of the idea of believing in God, or of vicars

themselves, but rather the jokes are at the expense of the world and

the predicament of a vicar in the world. He explained that the

creative process involves coming up with the scenario of a plot and

then having “authenticity conversations” with advisers, from which

most of the best anecdotes emerge.

Tom talked with candour about his reflections on his own life

whilst involved with the series. “I do find I’ve gone to church

much more because of it and I realise that this has also coincided

with a sort of juncture in my life. I found a lot of the people that I

was very close to, and relationships that I was having, were going

quite dark. This is partly why I always try to go ‘no, we can’t just

be funny’. The principles of taking yourself out of things and

putting those in more need than you first, looking after the sick

and the needy and the poor and the disenfranchised, and putting

them first as a means to your own salvation, have been knocking

around in my head. So the vicar who is beset with the daily issues

that we all confront of anger, frustration, lust, whatever they are …

has to come to terms with them publically and has to know how to

talk about them for others and how to help other people, but of

course is also helping himself or herself in doing so.”

James talked about what he has noticed about the attitudes of the

wider public to the church. He sees a prevailing assumption that it

will be there for people when they want it: for a wedding or

christening, for example. He sees that it is a huge part of our

cultural history: that very deep inside the culture are yearnings

beyond scientific explanations to the mysterious; and that these

powerful feelings are instincts with which the media in general, and

television in particular, rarely engage. Summing up the ingredients

that make Rev successful, he said, “I think the simple trick of our

show is we’ve tried to do an authentic and sincere programme

about an authentic and sincere character, and actually everyone out

there is engaging with those big questions of faith, whatever faith

it may be, and we’ve done it in nice half-hour chunks that are

funny.”

James felt that key to the success of the show has been that it

addresses the kind of questions of faith that everyone is asking, but

in a way that is more accessible than a lot of conventional religious

and philosophical broadcasting. He also reflected that the show is

arguably at its best when it takes a current church or social issue

and deals with it through the characters. He observed that when

big current church issues become the main plot drivers they have

resonances far beyond the church and are indicative of culture as a

whole, saying, “Episode one was about pushy parents using the

church to get their kids a free education. That’s a church story but

that’s a social and cultural story as well.”

He commented that there was no deliberate intention to do PR for

the church, but because in Adam they have created a credible,

rounded character, they have “done the human side of what it is to

24

be a vicar” and this means that they are presenting what he feels

lots of viewers, the public, or even congregations, have not seen.

“They see the role, they’ve seen the outfit, but we’re not afraid to

show a man who has all the weaknesses that humans have. He can

be proud and lazy and slothful and bored and lustful and all these

things, but at heart he’s a good man trying to do a good job in

difficult circumstances. I think that probably does have, for the

people who see the show, a positive impact on the church, but it’s

certainly not something we intend to do.”

Tom added, “I think something about not doing the comedy

stereotype means people key into it, because the idea that even the

priest himself is unsure humanises the idea of going to church.

Someone said, “It’s so good because it makes vicars look like normal

people”.”

James highlighted what he saw as a contradiction between people’s

desires and what he described as “big Victoria buildings that are

imposing and designed so that people feel a bit of awe from their

religion and a sense of ritual, all of which remove the human from

the process.” He went on to say, “I think a lot of people are

therefore cautious of going to church because they feel intimidated

by it, despite the attempts to make the language more familiar.

Our programme says, ‘Look, here’s the actual person doing that’.”

James confessed to being puzzled that the church as an institution

appears so uninterested in, or poor at, bridging the gap between

services and ritual and the humans involved, and it is clear that he

thinks there are lessons in communication for the church to learn.

“It is a gap that the programme has perhaps slightly bridged by

mistake, in saying ‘Don’t be scared by these buildings, they’re just

run by someone like him’.”

James spoke of sensing a crisis in the church about how it should

be representing itself to a 21st century public, and commented that

the modes of communication he sees appear “out of date and old

and wrong and alienating often”, but things are different, he says,

when you talk to the individuals: “So in a strange way, because

we’re a show that goes out to however many millions of people, on

BBC2, I can see why, the vicars who like it (and not all do, let’s be

clear) feel we’ve done a really useful job for them because they’re

doing it one by one.”

Highlights taken from a recording of the ‘Life and Service’

session. With grateful thanks to Andrew Whitehead, Tim

Hupfield and Samantha Stayte.


25

Tom Hollander and James Wood visiting Westcott to speak to ordinands

Women in Priesthood

As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the ordination of

women to the priesthood in the Church of England, here we

profile two Westcott alumnae and the paths their ministries have

taken.

Dean of St Edmundsbury

The Very Revd Canon Dr Frances Ward trained for the

priesthood at Westcott House from 1987 to 1989 and was

installed as the first female dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral,

and the Church of England’s fourth female dean, in October

2010. Heather Kilpatrick, Communications Officer, interviewed

her in February about her life and work.

Frances was born in Australia and grew up in Ely, where her father

was the Head Teacher of the King’s School. She studied Theology

at St Andrew’s University, swapping from her first choice of a Fine

Arts & History degree. She then went on to nursing training at the

Royal London Hospital, but says “At that stage I was already

thinking about priesthood. I knew Norry McCurry, a member of

the Council at Westcott House, and talked to him about my

calling. He recommended that I apply to train at Westcott. I was

there when Rupert Hoare was Principal, and have good memories

and friends from those days. I clearly remember sitting at the back

of Chapel with my six-month-old daughter Matilda playing on the

carpet in front of me.”

Since her ordination in 1989, Frances has worked in parishes and as

a theological educator. This has included teaching for the United

Reformed Church at the Northern College in Manchester and

doing a PhD, as well as writing on a variety of subjects. She is

currently editing a series of essays with the Revd Professor Sarah

Coakley entitled Fear and Friendship, a sequel to Praying for England on

the subject of Anglicanism engaging with Islam. She is also writing

a book entitled Brittle Britain, looking at the role of the Church of

England in society. “We are living in so many different Britains –

in Bradford, for example, the population will soon be 50% Muslim.

I believe in a Catholic approach – the Church is a means of God’s

grace, and Eucharist is at the heart of what it means to be Church,

so we can be more confident and bold about what Church offers

society. The Church needs to be on the front foot, not the

back foot.”

Prior to moving to Bury St Edmunds, Frances was a Residentiary

Canon and Canon Theologian at Bradford Cathedral, where she

was responsible for liturgy and worship. Does Frances find Bury St

Edmunds a great change from Bradford? “I am reeling from the

differences – Bradford is complex, edgy and lacking in money.

There I was very involved in developing dialogue between the

Church and the Muslim communities, for example, but diversity is

a less pressing issue in Suffolk. God has called me to places of

immense contrast, but people are the same and you can preach, live

the Gospel and make friends anywhere. Such variety is a benefit of

the priesthood. Bury is vibrant, beautiful and lifts the spirits, and

one of the things I hope to establish is a centre for the arts and

theology, running modules and having artists in residence. I would

like to encourage theological reflections in art. There are some big

questions to be explored – does beauty have a purpose, for

example?”

Frances says that important to her being able to combine the role

of priest and mother has been the support of her husband Peter,

who is a consultant paediatrician. Together they have four

children, Matilda, Jonty, Theo and Hugh. “The older three

children have now left home for jobs and university, but Hugh is

still living with us and has adjusted well to the move to Bury from

Lancashire.”

On the subject of being a woman with a senior Church position

she has previously been quoted as saying, “I know the other three

women deans and they are all good friends ... There are a number

of really capable women around who lead in different ways and

bring different perspectives to key jobs like this.” When asked to

reflect further on this, she says “Sometimes I feel watched, whether

I am or not, as there are so few women in this role. I do feel a

pressure not to make mistakes, but I believe other women are

empowered to see a woman in my position. I am not a strident

feminist; I am more likely to say that my presence in this context is

important, and to do it well – and as ‘me’ – is crucial. I care that

women are in leadership roles, and feel they bring different things

to leadership. There are questions of confidence and emotional

intelligence. My style of leadership is to create a culture that

engenders trust, and enables people to feel safe and trusted to get

on with their work.”

Frances Ward’s installation


26

Theology lived out

Rosalind (Ros) Lane was an ordinand at Westcott from 1993-95

and since 1997 has largely worked as a prison chaplain. Ros met

with Heather Kilpatrick in March to talk about her time at

Westcott and her work.

Ros’s call to ministry came out of her time as an undergraduate.

She did voluntary work at a high security prison while studying

Theology at Durham. Through this

experience she came to realise that

“Theology is not just to be studied,

but to be lived out.” Ros began

ordination training in 1993,

following the decision by the

Church of England in 1992 to

accept women in training for

priestly ministry, and was therefore

in the first cohort of women

ordained to priesthood.

Ros spent two years at Westcott, where she studied for the CTM

(Certificate in Theology for Ministry). While at Westcott, Ros had

a significant opportunity which influenced the direction of her

ministry.

“My time at Westcott was a very important part of my discernment

process to move into chaplaincy work. I had the chance to go on

placement at Fulbourn Hospital – a psychiatric hospital near

Cambridge – for three months. Canon Mike Law [retired Senior

Chaplain at Fulbourn Hospital, and now Westcott’s gardener]

encouraged me to enroll for psychotherapy training as part of my

priestly formation.” This enhanced Ros’s skills and ministry in the

areas of spiritual and pastoral care of some of the more vulnerable

members of the Church. “Westcott gave me the opportunity to

discover the reactions within me towards disability on all kinds of

physical, spiritual and emotional levels. It allowed me the freedom

to explore what I could learn from other faiths, to deepen my

spirituality and to practice pastoral care outside of the conventional

parish system.”

Ros’s first chaplaincy position after priesting was at Wakefield New

Hall Women’s Prison, and she has since worked at Doncaster,

Wymott, Kirkham and Whitemoor. She is currently Chaplain at

HM Prison Ashwell, which houses just over 200 prisoners at

Oakham in Rutland. Ashwell is a closed ‘Category C’ prison

holding a mixture of life sentenced, long- and short-term sentenced

prisoners.

In addition to her chaplaincy work, Ros has set up a private

counselling practice in Ely with a colleague, and is also studying

for a professional doctorate in Practical Theology. “My research

focuses upon the distinct ministry of prison chaplains. This

includes being the guardian of sacred space within the prison

environment as a place of hospitality and homecoming, and a

ministry of walking alongside those who feel disenfranchised due

to living within a loss environment. I have written course materials

for chaplains in all the different categories of prison upon how to

assist prisoners living with loss experiences and in particular those

Little Acorns: Ros’s church is based at Ely Cathedral centre on Sunday mornings where she worships with her two young children, other parents, grandparents and carers.Ros first initiated this in her last parish as a way to encourage children from a young age to have fun and share the gospel at the same time.

Ros Lane

Theology is not justto be studied, but tobe lived out.

27

with traumatic and complicated loss. My role as a chaplain has

been to create a spiritual community which prisoners can belong

to in order that they might experience the opportunity to

enfranchise themselves to a faith community, family life and to the

prison community. The chaplaincy centre has been at the heart of

this and has been an oasis of peace and welcome. This decreases

their sense of isolation, anxiety and lack of self worth, and can

bring hope, purpose and meaning to their lives. My research

approach has been unique within the prison service as prisoners

have assisted me and have been the co-creators of the research

findings, and this has led to the transformation of the work done

by chaplains and has transformed prisoners through giving them a

liberating voice and platform from where they can speak about

profound eternal truths in their lives.”

Ros says that through a combination of action research,

collaborative enquiry and theological reflection the research group

have found that a combination of education about loss through

group process, follow-up support group work and one-to-one

pastoral counselling and development of faith rituals, the spiritual

needs of prisoners have been addressed in a more individual way.

The methodology used has been a hallmark of the distinctive

nature of the research as much as the application of theories of

loss within the prison environment.

When asked how the prisoners can reach a resolution, she

explained “It is important that the prisoners design their own

rituals, using a chapel or world faith room as a focus. The ritual

would not be Christian so much as spiritual; prisoners can go to

their priest, rabbi, imam or appropriate spiritual leader in order to

devise a ritual personal to their faith experience. Part of the

process is also dealing with issues of guilt, grief and forgiveness

around the victim who, in some instances, can be inside their own

family. These issues can be very complex when the prisoner is

grieving the loss of a parent at their own hands, for example.

There are also quality of life issues which arise in prison, as some

prisoners will die in prison and this causes them to reflect on their

own mortality. Others will be reaching the end of their sentence

and grieving the loss of the prison when they move out.”

Ros is making recommendations and sharing best practice with

other chaplains so that they can use the process she has devised in

order to support prisoners and their families.

When asked about the role of chaplaincy, Ros is very positive.

“As a member of staff, I am paid by the prison but work for God.

You can contain fears and anxieties in a safe, confidential space.

I can offer a route to spiritual freedom and peace from all demands.

I can provide an oasis so men and women don’t feel ‘in prison’,

physically or emotionally. I treat prisoners and staff with decency,

dignity and respect, as I would expect to be treated. Much of my

work involves supporting staff who are returning to work following

a difficult incident like suicide, disturbance, workplace bullying or

challenging family circumstances.”

Ros recalls a particular highlight, saying “I remember a very badly

damaged high risk prisoner, who I had prepared for baptism and

confirmation.

He wrote a rap which he read out at the service that told his

journey of faith. He listened to rap music to give him a sense of

peace from the inner disturbances and voices and was able to find

his own voice in tune with the scriptures through his composition.”

Since giving this interview, Ros has moved from HM Prison Ashwell and is now

working within the NHS as a part-time mental health chaplain in Harlow,

Essex, while building up her private psychotherapy practice.


Ros with the ‘rap’ prisoner

28


Debating Fresh ExpressionsFor this issue of the Review, we invited Westcott tutors Andrew

Davison and Dave Male to talk about the church, mission and

fresh expressions. Dave is Tutor in Pioneer Ministry; Andrew has

been critical of the ecclesiology behind fresh expressions writing

– but they are good friends and never fail to have a productive

theological conversation.

AD We get on because of our enthusiasm

for the Christian theological tradition. I’m

glad that a thoroughgoing interest in

ecclesiology is picking up, although it may

be a little late. There will be a new report

soon on ‘emerging church’ which promises to

be a very theological follow up to Mission-

shaped Church. That will put us where we

should have been six years ago. I hope that

we are not closing the stable door after the

horse has bolted.

DM I agree with you that sometimes there

has not been enough theological thinking

and reflection, but often simply a pragmatic

attempt to find the next ‘thing’ to avert

decline. This isn’t only related to fresh

expressions but exists across the church.

Fresh expressions are all very new and, to

quote Alister McGrath, ‘theological

reflection on the identity of and calling of

the church follows on from its existence as a

community of faith.’ I am not so sure the

horse has bolted but more that we are now in

a place to reflect. Historically, we’ve had

various distillations of the nature of the

church. The problem is that they were

produced for a particular time and may be

answering questions we are no longer asking.

There is also a danger in defining church too narrowly. The

Archbishop of Canterbury leaves plenty of room for local detail in

his definition of church using Ignatius’ famous maxim ‘so from the

start where Jesus is, there is the church… the church is what

happens when people encounter the risen Jesus and commit

themselves to sustaining and deepening that encounter in their

encounter with each other.’

AD Those words of the Archbishop are wonderfully and properly

Christocentric but they are also open to more than one

interpretation – almost dangerously so. ‘The church is what

happens when people encounter the risen Jesus’ – that’s true, but it’s

a necessary rather than sufficient condition for what constitutes a

local church. This is where I differ from most of the fresh

expressions theorists I know. Clearly, the encounter of people with

Jesus is at the heart of the church, and the church is what came to

birth from that encounter, but there is more to the church than

this. We need not, and cannot, strip the church back to some

notional first-century state (although that is a

perennial Protestant impulse). All mainstream

churches have practices of prayer, doctrine,

leadership, and so on. They go beyond the

encounter with Jesus, but only so as to enable it to

happen. There is an illustrative parallel in the

relation of doctrine to the Bible: it is necessary but

not sufficient for Christian doctrine to be Biblical.

Without tradition, there would be no doctrine of the

Incarnation, or of the Trinity, and the sort of

eschatology that gets read out of the Bible without

doctrinal tutelage is often worrying or dangerous.

The urge to discount everything but the Bible within

doctrine is fundamentalist – to use an impolite word

– and I wouldn’t want to see the parallel take hold in

ecclesiology. It would surely be a mistake to take the

Archbishop’s comments as endorsing those ‘emerging

church’ writers who see the very notion of the

church as a bad idea – I am thinking of Viola and

Barna in Pagan Christianity.

DM I know that you agree with me in wanting to

stress the importance of the Body of Christ as a key

Biblical image. It sums up the incarnational impulses

of continuity and change. In Christ there is

something both unchanging about the nature of the

Son of God but also something highly contextual, as

he is born into a particular time, place and culture.

This reflects something about what it means to be

the body. Images from the New Testament also remind us of the

incredible variety of the church: Paul Minear in his seminal work

on this issue suggests there are 96 different images for the church

in the New Testament. And it is important to think about the

church in terms of mission.

AD We are both enthusiasts for church and mission. Perhaps we

differ in that I see mission, theologically, in terms of the church,

whereas fresh expressions people think of the church in terms of

mission. George Carey did us no favours with his statement that

Andrew Davison

Dave Male

29

‘ecclesiology is a sub-discipline of missiology’. One day, our

mission will cease but the church will not pass away. What we treat

as a sub-discipline of what matters: I wouldn’t be happy if I had to

visit a surgeon and he told me that orthopaedic surgery is a sub-

discipline of homeopathy.

DM That relationship between ecclesiology and missiology is

really important. Quite often missiology is dismissed as not a

‘proper’ avenue of theology. We may disagree here but I side with

Kahler: ‘Mission is the mother of theology’. As Jenson and Wilhite

conclude in their book The Church: A Guide for the Perplexed, ‘mission is

the mother of the church’.

AD Moving on to discipleship or formation, here we find what

promises most for a fruitful collaboration between fresh expressions

and the ‘inherited church’ – but that is not such a new dynamic. It

reminds me of a comment once made to me by a priest at St

Aldate’s in Oxford: ‘we are good at making converts, but the more

traditional parts of the church are better at keeping them’. That

might look like a haughty point from someone like me, coming

from the ‘traditional’ side, but it is a reproach to my side too. Being

evangelistic (the ‘making converts’ part) has to be part of the

discipleship of every Christian. If the ‘inherited church’ has things to

teach about spiritual disciplines and – I’d say – attitudes towards

time and place, and the service of the whole community, then the

new initiatives often set an enviable standard at old-fashioned out-

and-out evangelism. I know that I annoy fresh expressions people

when I say that not every initiative or gathering of Christians can

count as a local church (and I stand by that) – I would call many of

them ‘mission initiatives’ rather than local churches. Still,

evangelism being so important, it would be good for all of us from

the parishes to be in a mission initiative, not just everyone from a

mission initiative to be in a parish.

DM As we were both former members of St Aldate’s it is not

surprising that we agree around these issues of discipleship, even

though I am one of those not happy with your designation about

mission initiatives. (On this I think Roman Catholic theologians

may help us greatly with their idea of the ‘stretched notion of

church’.) Every type of church is faced with the issue of how we

form people in the image of Christ, especially when they often

have very little Christian background or teaching, and the culture

militates against Christian teaching. The danger is that much of our

formation is merely socialisation into the church, which will not

sustain us in our missionary situation where the majority of people

are not looking towards the church in any meaningful way. I think

also that our biggest challenge, both for new converts and those

who have been in the pews for years, is how to help people live out

the gospel within a dominantly consumerist society. Moving on,

what’s the role for some critical evaluation in all of this?

AD Seeing things clearly is always helpful. Christians should be

happy to look the truth of the situation in the face. My worry over

empirical measurement is with interpretation (and even deciding

what to measure involves interpretation). We might learn from the

‘secular’ social sciences about means of measurement, but I wouldn’t

want so easily to learn from them over what makes a good or bad

outcome. That needs a theological assessment. A small parish or

mission initiative is not necessarily a failed one: there are parishes in

largely non-Christian areas that bear an excellent witness to the

faith. And initiatives can be successful in ways they were not

supposed to be: I know of fresh expressions that have not made

many new converts but are ‘successful’ in having provided a place

for people to remain attached to the church who were teetering on

the edge.

DM My main worry isn’t about interpretation of the statistics but

the lack of research into whether we are really connecting with

those who are far outside the church (what Mission-shaped

Church calls the ‘unchurched’). We don’t know the answer for newer

churches but neither do we really know the answer for some of the

larger churches that are held up as ‘successes’. Are they simply

taking people from other churches or bringing them in

from beyond our fringe? I agree totally that context should give

the main clues as to what we should be expecting from local

churches. But with limited resources some key decisions are needed

about how we are a national church and how that is expressed

across the nation.

AD You always bring me back to the unchurched. Thank you

for that.

DM And you’re always a good doctrinal compass.

AD and DM This discussion will run and run…

Dave Male’s new book

Pioneers 4 Life was released

in August.

Andrew’s Imaginative Apologetics was

published in May, and his For the

Parish (with Alison Milbank) came

out in September 2010.


30

31

Templeton Prizewinners

Westcott alumni have received two of this year’s twelve

Templeton Foundation Awards for Theological Promise, having

been chosen from an international field of applicants. The Revd

Dr Benjamin King and the Revd Dr Donna Lazenby received

their awards at a ceremony held in Heidelberg, Germany, in May.

The John Templeton Foundation is known for its support of

research on the overlap between theology and science, not least

with the annual Templeton Prize. The Templeton Awards for

Theological Promise, instituted in 2006, extend beyond science

and religion into the wider remit of the Foundation, which is

investigation of ‘the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate

reality’. They are given each year to young post-doctoral scholars

for work in theology and spirituality.

Ben King studied at Westcott from 1997-2000. He was ordained in

the Diocese of Chichester but served his curacy at the Church of

the Advent, Boston, an Anglo-Catholic flagship parish in the city

centre. He stayed in Boston, becoming the Anglican Chaplain to

Harvard University. A Brit married to an American, Leyla, who is

also a priest, Ben was appointed as Assistant Professor of Church

History in the School of Theology at the University of the South,

Sewanee, Tennessee, in 2009. The University of the South is the

only Anglican university in the United States, and has close links

with the Church of England.

Ben’s award recognises his groundbreaking work on the role

Alexandrian patristic tradition played in Victorian England. He

began his theological studies at Westcott, so it would be pleasing

to think that this interest grew up in the context of daily worship

in the Chapel, dedicated as it is to the most significant of all the

Alexandrians, St Athanasius. Ben began this work as his PhD thesis,

studying with Andrew Louth at Durham part-time over three

summers. It was later developed as a book for Oxford University

Press and published in 2009 to great acclaim as Newman and the

Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England. ‘Read,

and be amazed’, wrote Aidan Nichols in his New Blackfriars review.

The book chronicles the writings on the Church Fathers by John

Henry Cardinal Newman. Interest in Newman grows at an

extraordinary pace following his beatification in September of last

year. Dr King’s book shows the scope of his intellect, but is not

entirely easy reading for those inclined to greet Newman with

adulation: we might praise the thinker who wrote that ‘to be

perfect is to have changed often’ for reinterpreting church history

throughout his life, but it also becomes clear that one instinct in

reshaping his understanding of the Fathers and their doctrine was a

desire to please the Pope.

Ben’s current work takes in both a general interest in what it means

to pursue theological truth from a particularly Anglican

perspective, and the more specific question of the place of

‘reception’ in the development of doctrine.


The Revd Dr Benjamin King


Donna Lazenby has recently been ordained deacon in the Diocese

of Southwark after two years of study at Westcott. She is serving a

multifaceted curacy in the Diocese of Southwark at Springfield

Church, Wallington with St Michael’s and All Angels, South

Beddington, and St Paul’s, Roundshaw. This post combines both

Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical congregations, and parish ministry

alongside a Fresh Expression. Donna was recently married to a fellow-

priest, Chris Thomson.

Donna’s award recognises the value of her ongoing work on

Christian mysticism, literature and apologetics, as demonstrated by

her doctoral thesis on ‘Christian Mysticism and Virginia Woolf’, for

which she received her PhD from Cambridge in 2009. Of

particular interest were the points of contact between the language

and metaphysics of Christian mysticism and Woolf’s literary

aesthetics. During these studies Donna was supervised by Dr

Catherine Pickstock (Cambridge), Professor Ben Quash (then at

Peterhouse, Cambridge and now King’s College London – and

himself a Westcott alumnus) and Dr Pamela Sue Anderson

(Oxford). Donna’s PhD research is to be elaborated into a book for

the publisher I.B.Tauris entitled A Mystical Philosophy: Transcendence

and Immanence in the Works of Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch. It shows

how these two women philosopher-novelists each appraised the

dry and reductive philosophical setting in which they found

themselves – characterised by the assertion that ‘what I can point at

is all that exists’ – and moved beyond it. Woolf focused on

aesthetic considerations, Murdoch on morality, but both see works

of art as a privileged place to explore the richest dimensions of

human experience. A Mystical Philosophy will be important not only

for bringing the novels of Iris Murdoch into dialogue with her

philosophy, but also for paying attention to Virginia Woolf as a

metaphysician of considerable consequence.

Before her PhD, Donna read Tripos in theology and philosophy

and an MPhil in philosophical theology at Queens’ College,

Cambridge. Between her PhD and coming to Westcott she was a

lay pastoral assistant in a parish in South East London. She

organised last December’s highly successful conference in

apologetics at Westcott, with Alister McGrath, Graham Ward and

Bishop Nick Baines among the speakers. In May, an essay of

Donna’s was published on the implicit worldview to be found in

the writings of novelists associated with the New Atheism (among

them Martin Amis and Ian McEwan). It appeared in a collection,

Imaginative Apologetics, edited by Westcott’s Tutor in Doctrine,

Andrew Davison. The volume is quite a Westcott anthology, with

six Westcott-trained writers contributing: alongside Donna and

Andrew there are essays from Graham Ward, John Milbank, Alister

McGrath and John Hughes. Next year we can look forward to the

publication of a monograph from Donna with Cascade books (an

imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers) on Christian apologetics and

spiritual themes in the contemporary secular imagination.

The Revd Dr Donna Lazenby

We congratulate Ben and Donna ontheir awards, which further associateWestcott with theological study at thehighest level, and on their ongoing workat the service of the Church, which theseawards acknowledge.

32

New Developments

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

33

Westcott’s Key Priorities

In last year’s Review I outlined the three key prioritiesfor Westcott over the coming years:

• maintaining theological excellence;• providing facilities fit for the 21st century;• developing our outreach to the wider Church.

Over the past twelve months we have been workingtowards making all three a reality. In this piece, Iwould like to take the opportunity to update you onour progress so far.

Maintaining Theological Excellence

A high proportion of Westcott House ordinands train on

Cambridge University theology degrees. We usually admit about

five ordinands for the Tripos and about ten for the BTh each year.

This year and last, half of those taking the Tripos in Theology at

Westcott gained first class honours including one starred first in

both years. The increase in university fees means that Westcott

House, after the Church of England have paid a proportion, will

still need to raise £4,500 per Tripos student per year and £1,500

per BTh student per year.

We are in negotiation at local and national level, including with

senior figures in both the political and church arenas, to ensure

that our predicament is understood. In addition, we are actively

fundraising for bursaries and a number of Cambridge colleges are

already kindly offering to use existing funds to support our

students. Already, a number of alumni and friends have pledged

donations. Please will you join in lending your support to this

pressing need, and consider whether you, your parish or others

whom you know could help by making a donation.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

Facilities fit for the 21st century

Westcott Council has agreed to indicative proposals for building

development on the existing Westcott site which would have a

number of benefits for the House. The development would

elegantly address our need to increase student accommodation and

the facilities available for teaching and learning. It would enable us

to expand the accommodation available in G block by providing

additional rooms and en suite facilities, as well as creating a larger

library, dedicated office space and an attractive new entrance to the

College on Manor Street. The expansion of our library, with the

addition of teaching space for small group teaching and

appropriate IT facilities, will enable us to create learning resource

facilities fit for the 21st century. It will create the kind of flexibility

we will need in the future for residential and part-residential

training pathways, as well as continuing ministerial development.

We are now actively engaged in seeking substantial funding for

these plans.

Developing our outreach to the widerChurch

In recent years we have been engaging with the wider Church

through activities largely focused on two areas: first, the continuing

ministerial development of clergy, and secondly, the exploration of

public issues of concern to those engaged in church leadership.

The Westcott Council has agreed that we should investigate the

feasibility of developing this engagement further in the form of an

institute, offering not just conferences but also study days, retreats

and sabbaticals. Through our research over recent months we have

come to realise that there is a clear need for such opportunities

within the Church on a regional and national level. Once again,

to develop this initiative to its full potential we will need to raise

funds, particularly so that we can improve our website to make it a

more effective means of communication, and in order that we can

attract the best speakers to our conferences and seminars.

Without additional income such plans will be hard to make a

reality, and I hope that you will be inspired by the vision for

Westcott’s future outlined here and consider making a gift.

A donation form is included with this mailing, along with

information on the following page about how you can make

a gift to Westcott in your Will.

34

Westcott House showing the location of the proposed development, on the south sideof G staircase and including a glass atrium adjoining the chapel

Remembering Westcott

If and when the time is right, we hope that you willconsider naming Westcott House as a recipient of atleast part of your Will. You may choose to help as anexpression of affection for the College, or out of gratitudefor the education and preparation for ministry youreceived. You may wish to give a gift in your Willbecause circumstances have not permitted you tohelp during your lifetime.

Westcott, as a registered charity (no. 311445), pays no taxon gifts of money or property made in this way. In addition,the gift may have benefits for your estate by reducing theamount liable to Inheritance Tax.

Your existing Will may be amended by simply adding acodicil. Alternatively, the gift can be included in anyrevision of your Will that may become necessary from timeto time. In either case, if you do amend your Will you arestrongly recommended to obtain the assistance of yoursolicitor.

The following wording for a Will or codicil may be used:

I give to WESTCOTT HOUSE, JESUS LANE,CAMBRIDGE (Registered Charity Number 311445) theresidue / [a proportion] of the residue of my estate / the sumof £[amount] free of tax for the general purposes of theHouse AND I DECLARE that the receipt of the Principal orother authorised officer for the time being of the House shallbe a good and sufficient discharge to my executors.

We would encourage you to leave money for ‘general purposes’, as needs vary over time and this willallow the College to use the money wherever it ismost needed. However, if you prefer, you canindicate that you have a particular interest in certainareas such as bursaries, teaching, or the Collegebuildings and grounds.

If you would like to speak to someone aboutmaking a gift of this kind, please contact:

The Revd Canon Martin Seeley (Principal)Westcott HouseJesus LaneCAMBRIDGECB5 8BP

Tel: +44 (0)1223 741000Fax: +44 (0)1223 741002e-mail: [email protected]

35

Westcott House Gifts and Mementos

We are very pleased to offer an assortment of Westcott House gift and memento items.

To order any of these items please write to the Development Office, Westcott House,Jesus Lane, Cambridge CB5 8BP or email [email protected].

Westcott House Cuff Links

With either chain link(as pictured) for£20 or swivelfitting £18+£2.50 p&p

Westcott House Photo Postcards

Postcards featuring photos of Westcott House,All Saints’ Church, The WestcottIcon, and Hort30p eachor a set of allfour for £1

+50p p&pfor up to4 cards

Westcott House Greeting Cards

Greeting card with whiteenvelope, blankinside for yourmessage.

£1.00 each+40p p&p,or 5 for £4+£1 p&p

The WestcottHouse Icon

A 14x19cm printof the icon on2mm thick card.£3.50

+£1.50 p&p forup to 3+£2.00 p&p for 4-5

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Ember List 2011Deacons Diocese

Joyce Addison CanterburyKate Blake London, Willesden AreaGemma Burnett-Chetwynd RochesterSam Dennis SouthwarkJanet Durrans RochesterBen Eadon DurhamPhilip Elliott SalisburyAlun Ford NewcastleMargaret Gallagher Southwell & NottinghamJustin Gau London, Stepney areaJames Grant ManchesterHannah Hupfield St Edmundbury & IpswichElliot James St AlbansJulie Khovaks CanterburyDonna Lazenby SouthwarkThomas Lilley NorwichJoel Love BlackburnMatthew McMurray BlackburnPhilip Payne St Edmundbury & IpswichJudith Pollard Southwell & NottinghamGareth Powell BirminghamRod Reid ChelmsfordTom Sander St AlbansJames Stewart NorwichLisa Temperley-Barnes LeicesterGillian Trinder Ripon and LeedsCatherine Tucker SouthwarkSteve Vincent LichfieldKarin Voth Harman PeterboroughJulie Watson Worcester

Priests

Helen Bailey Ripon & LeedsCharlotte Ballinger St AlbansGillian Barrow LincolnJames Blackstone SouthwarkPhil Bradford WorcesterKat Campion-Spall SouthwarkJulia Candy DurhamRebekah Cannon ChichesterSuzanne Cooke NorwichTony Curtis NewcastleOwen Dobson LondonJonathan Elcock ManchesterThomas Glover DurhamSandra Hall ChichesterSally Kimmis NorwichPatrick King SalisburyDouglas Machiridza BirminghamCatherine Macpherson WakefieldFiona Mayer-Jones YorkRosemary Morton ChelmsfordJohn Pares NorwichRuth Patten ChelmsfordSusannah Rudge BirminghamAnthony Searle St AlbansNeil Shave ManchesterCatherine Shelley ManchesterPriscilla Slusar LichfieldPhilip Smith DurhamAndrew Thomas OxfordEdward Thornley NorwichFaith Wakeling ChelmsfordMichael Womack St Edmundsbury & Ipswich

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Staff Contacts

PrincipalMartin SeeleyDirect line: 01223 741010email: [email protected]

Vice-PrincipalWill LambTutor in New TestamentDirect line: 01223 741013email: [email protected]

Tutors

James BuxtonTutoremail: [email protected]

Tiffany ConlinDirector of Pastoral Studiesemail: [email protected]

Andrew DavisonTutor in Doctrine, Assistant Director of StudiesDirect line: 01223 741007email: [email protected]

Simon GatenbyTutor for the Manchester ProjectDirect line: 0161 273 2470email: [email protected]

Andrew MeinTutor in Old Testamentemail: [email protected]

Elizabeth PhillipsTutor in Theology and Ethics Direct line: 01223 740952email: [email protected]

Jeff PhillipsTutor in Philosophy and TheologyDirect line: 01223 741102email: [email protected]

Victoria RaymerDirector of Studies, Tutor in LiturgyDirect line: 01223 741011email: [email protected]

ChaplainLindsay YatesDirect line: 01223 741012email: [email protected]

Acting ChaplainChristopher WoodsDirect line: 01223 741012email: [email protected]

Associate Tutors

Will AdamExternal Tutor in Applied EcclesiologyDirect line: 020 8886 3545email: [email protected]

Jeff BaileyTutor in Public TheologyDirect line: 01223 741102email: [email protected]

Louise Codrington-MarshallExternal Tutor for Parish Ministryand Minority Ethnic ConcernsDirect line: 020 8876 7162email: [email protected]

Dave MaleTutor in Pioneer MinistryDirect line: 01223 746585email: [email protected]

Philip SheldrakeSenior Research FellowDirect line: 01223 740052email: [email protected]

Support Staff

Marie BullAdmissions OfficerDirect line: 01223 741001email: [email protected]

Victoria EspleyBursarDirect line: 01223 741003email: [email protected]

Liz GordonHouse and Conference ManagerDirect line: 01223 741004email: [email protected]

Heather KilpatrickCollege Administrator, Communications OfficerDirect line: 01223 741005email: [email protected]

Adrian SavinChef ManagerDirect line: 01223 741008email: [email protected]

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Members of the Governing Council 2010 – 2011

The Rt Revd Tim Stevens, Chair

The Revd Canon Martin Seeley, Principal

The Revd Dr Will Lamb, Vice-Principal

Mr David Gill, Honorary Treasurer

Mrs Morag Bushell

The Rt Revd Stephen Conway

The Revd Dr Andrew Davison

The Revd Duncan Dormor

The Rt Revd Christopher Foster

Miss Elizabeth Foy

The Revd Canon Vanessa Herrick

The Revd Dr Philip Luscombe

The Revd Dr Jeremy Morris

Mr David Scott

Mrs Denise Thorpe

The Revd Canon Dr Fraser Watts

The Revd Lindsay Yates

Observers:

Mrs Victoria Espley

The Revd Simon Gatenby

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EMAIL: [email protected]

www.westcott.cam.ac.uk

MEMBER OF THE CAMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL FEDERATION

REGISTERED CHARITY NO: 311445

JESUS LANE • CAMBRIDGE • CB5 8BPUNITED KINGDOM

TEL: +44 (0)1223 741000FAX: +44 (0)1223 741002

2010 – 2011 the year in review€¦ · engagement in this review. victoria espley, who started as...

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