Graham Kings

Graham Kings (born 10 October 1953) is a retired English Church of England bishop and former Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion (2015–17). On 22 November 2015 he was licensed as Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Southwark, where he currently serves as World Mission Adviser, having previously served at St Matthew’s-at-the-Elephant from September 2017 to February 2019. He was consecrated bishop as the Anglican Bishop of Sherborne on 24 June 2009 at a service in Westminster Abbey.

The Right Reverend Doctor

Graham Kings
Honorary Assistant bishop, Diocese of Southwark
In office22 Nov 2015–present
Other postsBishop of Sherborne (Diocese of Salisbury, (2009–2015)
Orders
Ordination1980[1]
Consecration24 June 2009[2]
Personal details
Born (1953-10-10) 10 October 1953
NationalityBritish
DenominationAnglican
SpouseAlison[1]
Childrenthree adult daughters[1]
ProfessionBishop, Theologian
Alma materHertford College, Oxford

Early life and education

Kings was born in Barkingside, Essex, on the eastern outskirts of London. He is one of two children. He was educated at Chigwell County Primary School (1958–65); Buckhurst Hill County High School, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Hertford College, Oxford (1973–77, BA/MA, Law, one year, Theology, 3 years); Ridley Hall Theological College (1978–80 Ordination training); Selwyn College, Cambridge, (1979–80, DipTh in New Testament post graduate studies); and Utrecht University (1998–2002 PhD by extension). He was an Honorary Fellow of Durham University (2015–18).

Career

Between school and Oxford, Kings was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards on a short service limited commission (February to September 1973) and served as a tank troop leader in Munster, West Germany. Between Oxford and Cambridge, his first year of marriage, he was a caretaker at All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London (1977–78). Kings was ordained deacon at Michaelmas 1980 (28 September), by Hewlett Thompson, Bishop of Willesden, at St Mary's, Ealing, and ordained a priest at Michaelmas 1981 (27 September), by Graham Leonard, Bishop of London, at St Paul's Cathedral. He served as a curate in St Mark's Harlesden (1980–84), founding an open youth club there. He then spent seven years as a Church Mission Society mission partner as Director of Studies, and then as Vice-Principal, at St Andrew’s College, Kabare, Kenya, working with Bishop David Gitari, Bishop of Mount Kenya East and later Bishop of Kirinyaga, and supervising the building of a new Library, Chapel and Archive Centre. He was appointed an Honorary Canon of St Andrew's Cathedral in Kerugoya, Kenya, in October 1991, at his farewell graduation ceremony, and the Kings family returned to Britain in November 1991.

In January 1992 Kings became the first Lecturer in Mission Studies at the Cambridge Theological Federation a new post supported by the Henry Martyn Trust. His study was at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Kwame Bediako, a Ghanaian theologian, preached at his commissioning service at Holy Trinity Cambridge on 20 January.

In July 1995, Kings moved to Westminster College, Cambridge, the library from the Henry Martyn Hall, next to Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, and his study from Ridley Hall. He served as the founding Director of the Henry Martyn Library, for the study of mission and world Christianity, at Westminster College, which was formally opened by Kenneth Cragg on 22 January 1996. This became the Henry Martyn Centre for the study of mission and world Christianity, and an Associate Member of the Cambridge Theological Federation, in 1998. Kings initiated the move of the SPCK archives and library from Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, to the Cambridge University Library, which was also completed in 1998. The centre was renamed the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide in 2014.

From 1995, Kings became an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge and its representative on the board of the Centre for African Studies, University of Cambridge. He attracted a six-year international, inter-university project to the Faculty of Divinity, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, USA, which was directed by Brian Stanley (1996–2002), the North Atlantic Missiology Project (later renamed the Currents in World Christianity project), and was located at the Henry Martyn Centre. The project eventually published 24 Eerdmans books in the ‘Studies in the History of Christian Missions’ series. He also attracted the Christianity in Asia project to the Faculty of Divinity, directed by Archie Lee, which published Christian Theology in Asia (CUP, 2008), edited by Sebastian C H Kim.

During this period in Cambridge, Kings studied at Utrecht University for a PhD in theology, supervised by Jan Jongeneel, in Utrecht, and by Daniel W. Hardy and Brian Stanley, in Cambridge. He was awarded the PhD in March 2002 and it was published as Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker (Boekencentrum, 2002) and was republished by ISPCK in India in 2017, with a foreword by Jayakiran Sebastian.

On 28 September 2000, Kings was inducted as vicar of St Mary's Islington, an historic Evangelical church in the Diocese of London, and served for 9 years.   He arranged the renovation of the church Neighbourhood Centre and the crypt of the church, putting in a lift through the Georgian vault, 2008–09, to provide access for all, and founded the St Mary Islington Community Partnership, since renamed Mary’s.

While at Islington, in September 2003, Kings founded, with others, Fulcrum as an online open evangelical Anglican journal, of which he was the theological secretary till 2019, and in 2006 he founded, with Christopher Wells, Covenant, a site for young emerging theologians of The Episcopal Church in the USA.

On 24 June 2009, Kings was consecrated bishop by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster Abbey to serve as the Bishop of Sherborne, in the Diocese of Salisbury, covering especially the county of Dorset. Prof David F. Ford, preached the sermon. St Aldhelm was the first Bishop of Sherborne, 705–709. Kings's lecture at the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, in Feb 2010, was developed into an article, ‘Doing Theology as a Bishop’, which describes confirmations, schools, missions, theological seminars and alpha courses. Kings chaired the historic Salisbury-Sudan link and visited South Sudan three times, writing a series of Guardian articles about the country.

On 15 July 2015, Kings was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, as ‘Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion’ and was commissioned formally at Canterbury Cathedral on 13 September 2015. This involved resigning from the see of Sherborne  and was an innovative post created by the partnership of the Archbishop, the Church Mission Society and Durham University. Kings was appointed as Honorary Fellow of Durham University for three years and was also a Senior Member of both St Chad’s and St John’s College, Durham. His inaugural project lecture, in Durham and Lambeth Palace, was on ‘Sarah the Mother of Mission’, in June and July 2016. In October 2016 he lectured at the Pontifical Urban University, Rome, on ‘Evangelical-Roman Dialogue on Mission, 1977–1984.’

Kings and his wife lives in Bermondsey and he has a research desk at Lambeth Palace Library. The purpose of the Mission Theology in the Anglican Communion project was to discover emerging theologians in the global South and encourage them to write, network, publish and engage with theologians in the global North. He co-chaired national conferences in Cairo, Bengaluru, and Recife, and international conferences in Jerusalem and Dallas and was present at Limuru, Kenya. The project site has 103 original articles and its three books, preparing for the Lambeth Conference 2020, have been published by the Anglican Communion Office. They are on Walking Together (2018), Witnessing Together (2019) and Listening Together (2020 forthcoming), edited by Kings's successor in the project, and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, Muthuraj Swamy, and Stephen Spencer, Director for Theological Education in the Anglican Communion.

Kings served on the Liturgical Commissions of the Anglican Church of Kenya and of the Church of England, the Mission Theology Advisory Group of the Church of England, and the Network for Inter Faith Concerns of the Anglican Communion. In April 2019, the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded him the Cross of St Augustine, for services to the Anglican Communion.

He has commissioned and collaborated with three artists in particular. In 1991, Benson Ndaka carved the six mahogany door panels, and one relief sculpture of African Christian Theology, for the library of St Andrew’s College, Kabare. In 2003, Jonathan Clarke sculpted ‘Christ Blessing the Children’, a lectern for St Mary Islington, and in 2009 ‘Sign’ for Queen Elizabeth School, Wimborne, Dorset. From 2003 to 2020, Silvia Dimitrova painted seven paintings of Women in the Bible for the Kings family.

He has written articles for The Guardian and The Times and has had his poetry published in the journal Theology and in Transparencies: Pictures of Mission.

Personal life

Kings married Alison Audrey Britton in 1977 and they have three daughters, Rosalind, Miriam and Katie-Wambui. Alison Kings is a psychotherapist.

Publications

Kings has published three books:

  • Offerings from Kenya to Anglicanism (Grove Liturgical Study, 2001), with Geoff Morgan
  • Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker (Boekencentrum, 2002 and ISPCK, 2017).
  • Signs and Seasons: a Guide for Your Christian Journey  (Canterbury Press, 2008)

He has edited one book:

  • Out of the Depths: Hope in Times of Suffering (Anglican Communion Office, 2017)

He has published various chapters in books including:

  • ‘The Meeting of Faiths: Max Warren and John V Taylor’, in Kevin Ward and Brian Stanley (eds), The Church Mission Society and World Christianity, 1799–1999 (Eerdmans, 2000).
  • ‘Worship on Upper Street’ in Tim Stratford, Worship: Window of the Urban Church (SPCK, 2006).
  • ‘Foreword’ to Caroline Hodgson and Heather Smith (eds), The Joy of Being Anglican (Redemptorist Publications, 2017).
  • ‘Afterword: Maps Matter and Myths Matter’ to Mark A. Lamport (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South (Rowan & Littlefield, 2018) Vol 2.

He has published numerous articles on Fulcrum, Covenant and Mission and Theology in the Anglican Communion.

Styles
  • The Reverend Graham Kings (1980–1991)
  • The Reverend Canon Graham Kings (1991–2002)
  • The Reverend Canon Doctor Graham Kings (2002–2009)
  • The Right Reverend Doctor Graham Kings (2009–present)
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References
  1. "Number 10 – Suffragan See of Sherborne". Archived from the original on 27 December 2009. Retrieved 9 October 2010.
  2. (Accessed 24 May 2019)
Church of England titles
Preceded by
Tim Thornton		 Bishop of Sherborne
2009–15 July 2015		 Succeeded by
Karen Gorham
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