Well I would say that – I went there. But not everyone is proud of institutions they attended, and it is with some envy that I look at a college that has got stronger every year. How good it would be to start over again in 2007!
In last week’s Church Times (4 May) a letter was published by a recently retired DDO of St Alban’s Diocese. She picked up on some of the critical things that Tom Wright has said about the recently published book, Pierced for our Transgressions, and concluded that Oak Hill was not fit to be an Anglican Training College. Actually, she thought Oak Hill was not fit to train for Anglican ordination long before the publication of said book, but she doesn’t show that card in her hand.
This week’s Church Times (11 May), the letters page featured 4 letters responding to her. I’m told that newspaper editors will receive letters taking different sides on any debate. Their aim is to publish letters that reflect both sides, in their due proportion. How wonderful then to find that not one of those four letters is critical of the college. In terms of authorship, the bases are covered. The arguments are decisive.
1. David Peterson, current principal, writes. He refers Patience Purchas to the official procedures in place for validating training institutions. “The last report clearly and unreservedly concluded that the college was a fit and proper place to train men and women for minstry in the Church of England”. So, please allow these procedures to have their place, rather than seek to trump them with one book review, whose arguments are themselves open to debate.
2. Canon John Thomson, the college’s official C of E moderator writes. The college is from a different theological background to his own, but he has always found the college to be most “impressive”. He is frustrated by criticisms stemming from ignorance of the college.
3. Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, Andrew Sach, authors of PFOT wrote. Not to defend the college but one particular argument based on the semantic range of hilasterion. A different letter in the 4 May edition of CT – but relevant given that the colllege is criticised by association with the book.
4. 50+ of us who have recently been ordained into the Church of England, having trained at OHC, wrote in. Lee Gatiss did the sterling job of wording the letter. In a nutshell, the “academic rigour” at the college is stunning. The cheap, ill-thought through criticisms that have come out at PFOT suggests others could have done with the same training!
Long live Oak Hill Theological College! And may this be the end of the argument. Please.
Comments
Thanks, Ros, for making sure I'm being fair to her. Representing other people fairly is one of the (many) professional academic disciplines that Oak Hill taught me, and I'd want to exemplify that when talking about the college!
Good to hear that, James. Though I think it's unlikely that this will be the end of the debate.
Just to be fair to Patience Purchas (for God's glory, not because she deserves it), she did say in her letter:
Before I recently retired as a director of ordinands, I and many of my colleagues were increasingly concerned about the theological limitations of the training offered ordinands at Oak Hill College.
Which indicates that she has long thought OH not a fit place to train.
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