Remembering the Rt Rev Dr David Jenkins

It was with some sadness that I heard of the death of the Rt Rev Dr David Jenkins recently.

The one time Bishop of Durham was not ashamed of controversy as he challenged many of the beliefs of the church, not least on the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. He was not, as I understand it, an unbeliever. He was an honest Christian who desired to interpret the faith of the church for today’s world.

He joins a growing band of Christian thinkers and believers who wish to free the Bible from its 1st Century context, taking its essential truths about love and justice and find a language that touches our contemporary world and makes it relevant.

I am grateful for his humility and honesty in addressing the issues of today that enable many of us to keep the faith.

It is typical of the man that at his enthronement as Bishop of Durham, he said,

‘I face you therefore, as an ambiguous, compromised and questioning person entering upon an ambiguous office in an uncertain church in the midst of a threatened and threatening world.

I dare to do this and I, even with fear and trembling, rejoice to do this, because this is where God is to be found.’

Revd Ken Graham

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