John Robinson (bishop of Woolwich)
John Arthur Thomas Robinson (16 May 1919 – 5 December 1983) was an English New Testament scholar, author and the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich.[1] He was a lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later Dean of Trinity College[2] until his death in 1983 from cancer.[3] Robinson was considered a major force in New Testament studies and in shaping liberal Christian theology. Along with the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, he spearheaded the field of secular theology and, like William Barclay, was a believer in universal salvation.[4]
John Robinson
1959 to 1969
Dean of Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge (1969–1983)
- 1945 (deacon)
- 1946 (priest)
1959
by Geoffrey Fisher
5 December 1983 (aged 64)
Arncliffe, North Yorkshire, England
Clergyman and scholar
Early life and education[edit]
Robinson was born on 16 May 1919 in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral, England, where his late father had been a canon. He was educated at Marlborough College, then an all-boys' private school in Marlborough, Wiltshire. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge and Trinity College, Cambridge, and then trained for ordination at Westcott House, Cambridge.[5]
Ordained ministry[edit]
Robinson was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 1945 and as a priest in 1946.[6] From 1945 to 1948, he served his curacy at St Matthew's Church, Moorfields in the Diocese of Bristol.[5] The vicar at the time was Mervyn Stockwood.
In 1948, Robinson became chaplain of Wells Theological College, where he wrote his first book, In the End, God. In 1951, he was appointed Fellow and Dean of Clare College, Cambridge and a lecturer in divinity at Cambridge University.[7]
Following an invitation from Stockwood, by then the Bishop of Southwark, Robinson became the Bishop of Woolwich in 1959.[8]
The appointment of Robinson as a suffragan bishop was in Stockwood's gift, and whilst the Archbishop of Canterbury (at that point Geoffrey Fisher) questioned the appointment on the grounds that he believed Robinson at that point would be doing more valuable work as a theologian, he accepted that once he had given advice he had "done all that it was proper for him to do" and proceeded to consecrate Robinson to the episcopate. In 1960 Robinson served as a witness for the defence in the obscenity trial of Penguin Books for the publication of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. Following a ten-year period at Woolwich, Robinson returned to Cambridge in 1969 as Fellow and Dean of Chapel at Trinity College, where he lectured and continued to write.
Death[edit]
Robinson was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1983[9] and died on 5 December of that year in Arncliffe, North Yorkshire.[10]
Selected writings[edit]
In the End, God (1950)[edit]
Modern Universalist writer Brian Hebblethwaite[11] cites Robinson's In the End, God: A Study of the Christian Doctrine of the Last Things [12] as arguing for the universal reconciliation of all immortal souls. Ken R. Vincent, in The Golden Thread [13] states: "Robinson notes that Christ, in Origen's old words, remains on the Cross so long as one sinner remains in [H]ell. This is not speculation: it is a statement grounded in the very necessity of God's nature." George Hunsinger, author of Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth [14] writes that "[i]f one is looking for an uninhibited proponent of universal salvation, Robinson leaves nothing to be desired."
Jesus and His Coming (1957)[edit]
In this book, an analysis of the early history of the doctrine of the parousia, Robinson states: "That the heart of the Christian hope was now, once more to 'wait for God's son from heaven', for a second and final coming which would complete and crown the first, is a belief for which we have found no firm foundation in the words of Jesus himself."[15] Robinson further argued that there was a tendency in the early church to alter the meaning of sayings of Jesus that originally referred to his death and ascension into heaven, to refer to an event in the future that had not yet happened.[a]
Other[edit]
Robinson was also noted for his 1960 court testimony against the censorship of Lady Chatterley's Lover, claiming that it was a book which "every Christian should read."[40]
Robinson's legacy includes the work of the now late Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong in best-selling books that include salutes by Spong to Robinson as a lifelong mentor. In a 2013 interview, Spong recalls reading Robinson's 1963 book: "I can remember reading his first book as if was yesterday. I was rather snobbish when the book came out. I actually refused to read it at first. Then, when I read it – I couldn’t stop. I read it three times! My theology was never the same. I had to wrestle with how I could take the literalism I had picked up in Sunday school and put it into these new categories."[41]
The Bishop John Robinson School in Thamesmead, south-east London, which is within the area for which he was responsible as Bishop of Woolwich, is named after him.[42]