Following up on the recent Milburn report, today’s Church Times has analysed the educational background of the bishops of the Church of England.
The detailed results are listed only on the website, below the text of the article appearing in the newspaper.
Read it all at Half the Bishops in the C of E were educated privately.
…Data collected by the Church Times shows that [Welby] is not alone in being educated privately. While he is the only Etonian, 48 (exactly 50 per cent) of the 96 serving bishops whose schooling could be determined were educated in the independent sector. Thirty-five (36 per cent) attended a grammar school; just 13 per cent attended a comprehensive school.
Analysis of the bishops’ undergraduate education shows that 43 (42 per cent) took a first degree at Oxford or Cambridge. The University of Durham was, by a large margin, the third-commonest Alma Mater: 17 per cent of bishops received their first degree from the institution…
How many currently serving bishops, like Lord Carey, attended a Secondary Modern School? It didn’t seem to do his ecclesiastical career much harm, thanks to Maggie’s intervention.
Stephen Cottrell (+Reading) is listed as secondary modern – he’s certainly had a productive ministry and written a number of useful books. The question with Carey should perhaps be reversed – did his ecclesiastical career cause much harm, and especially his post-episcopal activities?
The Church of England long ago lost the working class. This was even revealed in the 1851 religious census…there are exceptions, but in the main it is still a middle class club, run by an elite. The family connections are fascinating.
But there again we have 5 Etonians in the cabinet.
Sadly, Lord Carey proved that Secondary Modern education didn’t work.
And the strategy to bolster this was to hobble with poor appointments those theological colleges that relished “outside the box” candidates for orders and then to close them.
Great to see that Harold Wilson (not iscariot) is being celebrated at Salisbury next month. His Legacy was systematically undermined by his immediate successor.
It would be interesting to have these data in historical perspective. If this survey had done been done 25 or 50 or 100 years ago, what would the results have been?
Does anyone know if such information is available?
Basic numeracy is a useful skill. By my reckoning 14 bishops on the list went to Cambridge but 18 went to Durham. That makes Durham not third but second in the table, after Oxford with 29.
(This presumably is for first degrees; some bishops maybe went to more than one university.)
Hmmm…. When were discussing university validation for ordination training at some meeting a few years ago, a certain Ministry Division official whom I won’t name told us that whatever we did, we will need to keep Oxford and Cambridge degree routes open in order to ensure a supply of future deans, bishops and theological teachers! as to Lord Carey – he received his higher education via ordination training and did his PhD while serving as a curate (as I recall). His publications are, I think, well written and with scholarly content, though readable! They are still worth reading today (e.g.… Read more »
I remember looking into this a couple of years ago. At that point every single bishop had attended Oxford or Cambridge at some point (undergrad, postgrad or theological college).
I am always struck by the ease the you can move from Oxbridge undergrad/postgrad through to a selection panel and theological college.
Of course, the Oxbridge chaplains (and parish priests) do a damn fine job of stirring up and fostering vocations, which many forget, but if you’ve not been lucky enough to go to such institutions, there feels to be an almost imperceptible barrier.
I’d think that going to a BAP in your 20s or 30s with just a handful of A-levels would be a rather intimidating experience.
@ Charles Read – I think one of the most pernicious lay divisive things the C of E does is to label people “future theological educators” before they’ve experienced ordained ministry, or, in some cases, before they’ve had their vocation tested at a selection conference. One male, middle-aged friend told me ” Of course I’m a future theological educator because I have An Oxford Degree”. His degree was not in theology and at this stage he hadn’t studied theology. Why this made him a better candidate for teaching others about theology than any of the gifted people I trained with… Read more »
Michael Ramsey wisely waited until he was dead before his official biography was published. Robert Runcie regretted that he hadn’t similarly stipulated a postmortem biography by Humphrey Carpenter. George Carey decided to write his own autobiography probably having read his immediate predecessor’s biography and named the mighty tome “Know the Truth”!
The question that has not been asked is what class of degrees did they all get? The bench of bishops is the most theologically illiterate imaginable. Just look again at the woeful report on MARRIAGE a couple of years ago. They ‘outsource’ the theology to so-called experts and sadly do not know when the ‘theologians’ don’t do a good job and therefore when to call bad work in. There are a number of bishops here with poor 2nds and even (at least one maybe more?) Oxbridge 3rds.
I guess, from this thread, that some of the Church’s Saints down the ages were not really educationally qualified for their particular vocation. They might never have reached the dizzy heights of the episcopate in the C.of E. had they been around today! What does that tell us about the culture of elitism in the Church of England? And should it change?
On the contrary — for hundreds of years the universities at Oxford and Cambridge have been where nearly all clergy were educated. Only relatively recently have there been any other English universities, and it’s perhaps really only in this generation of 50-somethings that a significant number of school-leavers attended other universities or (in those days) polytechnics. There also seems to be some confusion over the terms elitism and class. It seems to me that it is not necessarily a bad thing to provide for the elite — provided that the elite education and elite jobs are open to anyone regardless… Read more »
Surely, the issue of where bishops were educated is irrelevant. The more pressing issue is how many of them have an earned PhD in theology? Equally, how many of them are able to make an incisive and original contribution to theological discourse? How many have had the wider experience of teaching theology in a secular university and had to make the case for their academic discipline beyond the safety net of a theological college or part-time course? How many of them can make a coherent and imaginative theological case in the public sphere? Answer: pitifully few of them! Until the… Read more »
James A’s cryptic comment is, for those who don’t know, a reference to, the Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments, I don’t think there are any reasons why we need to be shy of identifying their role. I can’t find a record of how long the current person has been doing this job, but it is a long time. This office is reputed to have a lot of power in sifting the various candidates on the Preferment Lists of each diocese, promoting the visibility of those deemed to be “ready” and passing over those this person thinks are not. Others must decide… Read more »
As a working class girl who was able to gain a fantastic education via the 11+ at an excellent Grammar School that my extraordinarily hardworking factory-fodder father could never have paid for, I was equally grateful to have the opportunity to study with the Cambridge Theological Federation for my theological MA because – as a working class woman – I had never been able to afford to go to university at all, and had ‘worked my way up’ to becoming a researcher within the education system. Where you actually do study, does not necessarily predicate class, background, family connections or… Read more »
James A – I completely agree. And the problem is not so much that those with first class brains are not in the majority, but rather that there seems to be a worrying level of collective ignorance and I wonder WHICH of the bishops does have a first class intellect? I am not a Tory but see no problem that David Cameron is an Old Etonian (except he does not choose other colleagues from a sufficiently wide background and experience) nor that Blair was a public school boy. At least the Prime Minister obtained a first class degree.
I should have added that, when you look at the media’s top tips for the first female episcopal appointments, the situation is hardly going to change. We are not going to see professional theologians among the first wave of women bishops (e.g. Professor Sarah Coakley, Cally Hammond, Angela Tilby, Judith Maltby, Jessica Martin and so on). Just more processors and those who have been ‘coached’ to work the system.
If every university had the ratio of clergy to students which is found in Oxford and Cambridge (chaplains and local churches) the picture might be rather different.
There is wearying predictability about the way any topics involving bishops on this ‘thinking’ website turn into a kicking contest. Leadership? – useless. Theology? – inept. Education? – not a good enough degree/doctorate (and if they have a doctorate – like Carey? – OK but he needs kicking for other reasons). Is the assumption here that if we only sacked this lot of bishops and dismantled the management obsessed processes in place to appoint them, there is a whole raft of holy, doctorate/degree laden, super gifted, politically and internationally astute, media savvy, ethically agile and progressive thinking, men and women… Read more »
Raw theological talent in the House of Bishops (by which I mean the serious capacity to engage with doctrine, moral theology etc.) is on the wane, and it is easy to see why. Dioceses prioritise front line mission and church growth experience and that is not a recipe for appointing a Sykes or a Selby. That may not be a problem but it does mean that the House needs to look elsewhere for theological input and be honest in admitting that it needs to do that.
Great to see that Harold Wilson (not iscariot) is being celebrated at Salisbury next month. His legacy was systematically undermined by his immediate successor.
Well, Martin, not sure what legacy you mean. S&W remained drippingly liberal in Canon Askew’s day, and one part of the legacy I dearly wish he had got rid of were the ghastly vestments of the Wilson era. Sadly, he didn’t!
Good point James A, the sad indictment of the system is even with more inclusion the outcome is the same. In my experience of the ordination colleges of Oxford, the theology changed but largely the class stayed the same.
Yes David Runcorn I believe there are indeed a lot of good and even better people out there – although yes there will always be critics who grumble who seem unaware about the relative powerlessness of leaders. On a whole range of subjects it seems evident to me that we have received extremely poor leadership. From not the best people available.
Remind me, were St. Peter and St. Paul educated at Oxford or was it Cambridge?
Perhaps the fact that many independent schools have a strong Christian and specifically Anglican ethos is a factor. That said it would be interesting to see how many Bishops went to state church schools.
Neil ‘I believe there are indeed a lot of good and even better people out there’. I hope you are right. But I am wondering how you know?
As has already been non-too-subtly suggested, the process for appointing bishops needs an urgent overhaul – precisely because there are no Sykes or Selby-like figures in the present House of Bishops. The exceptions, of course, are Martin Warner and John Inge, (both of whom have an incisive theological instinct as well as an earned PhD in theology, and are both demonstrating inspirational and generously inclusive leadership of their dioceses in mission from different standpoints. The same could be said of Christopher Cocksworth in Coventry. But we cannot just leave it to three bishops. David Runcorn wonders how we know that… Read more »
I don’t think you can get a fag paper between people with firsts and people with seconds as far as theological aptitude is concerned. People with firsts tend to give up thinking once they receive them, and supposing one bad paper on a hot June afternoon thirty years ago disqualifies someone to be a bishop is daft.
@David Runcorn – I am genuinely sorry to contribute to your weariness. I believe in supporting those in leadership because if we don’t, the ship will sink very quickly. My own comments, about “future theological educators”, reflect what I see as an almost superstitious belief that simply by being in Oxford or Cambridge, one acquires superior thinking and theological skills, as well as the ability to teach these to other people. This is no reflection on the many able people in the church who have been through these institutions – including two very enabling and wise bishops I’ve had the… Read more »
Simon R. ‘Bishops are ordained to be shepherds of Christ’s flock and guardians of the faith of the apostles, proclaiming the gospel of God’s kingdom and leading his people in mission.’ (CofE liturgy of Consecration). Is that what you want overhauled? I do not find any prior stress there on teaching and certainly no separation of that ministry from the call to be shepherds and leaders of mission. And quite right too. You indeed mention some wonderfully gifted theologians. I could add a number of others. (there are more than these theologically literate bishops actually!). I just note that at… Read more »
‘Effective mission and evangelism arise out of deeply rooted, rigorous and imaginative theology – not the other way round!’
Curious, then, that the ‘great theologians’ that we so miss presided over such rapid decline in church attendance.
Here’s an idea: before you lead the Church demonstrate you can lead a church!
I am not sure the apostolic faith focussed so much on ‘engaging wider society positively and sympathetically’ as calling wider society to respond to the demanding call of Christ to come and die (Bonhoeffer) . Seems like we do have a few bishops who know how to do that.
Salisbury was not dripping liberalism when I was there. What struck me was the lack of ANY debate on women’s ministry and the diversity of characters …. we really did have people to the right of Attila the Hun and more ……… than Ian Paisley and more Catholic than the Pope. There were also a fair number of ordinary Series 2 CofE types who had been teachers or Army Officers ….. liberals? just a couple …. that was Harold’s legacy, we all moved along together, it was (for the designer of a famous dark chocolate box with a red tassle)… Read more »
I would think the character of the person would be as important as the school. Based on Our country we have some fantastic Bishops all over and I’ve never even wondered where they went to school the character of the person is more important than where they got their degree !!!!
I agree with you Ian. But ‘rapid’? We now know that the CofE peaked in membership in the 1920s. What is accelerating in recent decades has been happening for nearly a hundred years. So I don’t want to dump the blame on the doorstep of more recent bishops of ABCs. Something much bigger is going on. As to lamenting the absence of someone like a +Stephen Sykes … well I recall turning to his standard work ‘The Study of Anglicanism’ for lecture material and being startled to realise there is not one mention of evangelism or mission at all in… Read more »
I think we may be missing another aspect to this discusssion. Just before these stats became available I offered the following comments while addressing a meeting of Accepting Evangelicals in July. (http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/AE-synod-address-David-Runcorn.pdf) ‘In a recent article in a Sunday Observer newspaper, Alex Renton offered reflections on his (private) school experience that made all sort of connections for me. His focus was not on actual sexual abuse, and nor is it mine. But we were both formed within a very particular male-only educational culture that was characterised by such values as: toughness as character building, devotion to the team, distrust of… Read more »
Thank you, Ian and David, for sharing your vision of a church that will continue to withdraw from wider society and become more sectarian, with sharper boundaries delineating those who are ‘one of us’ and those who are not. It is precisely the myopic understanding of mission and evangelism you espouse, which arises from an insular ecclesiology and a self-referential theology (brilliantly illustrated by David’s limited assessment of the Sykes volume), which highlights the lack of theological rigour I am arguing for. If you had been candid and simply said ‘We really want an evangelical ziggurat where everyone believes what… Read more »
Worth saying perhaps that the Sykes volume referred to here was a multi authored volume concerned with Sykes concern for Anglican identity and many ordinands lack of it. I was a contributor and, in fact, its contents were sketched out by me and Stephen in the Porch Room of St Stephens Gloucester Rd before we adjourned for an indian meal in 1985 or 6. Its genesis owes something to my experiences as an Anglican student at the Venerable English College in Rome, a report I made to ACCM and subsequent correspondence with him and the view of SPCK that such… Read more »
Perry I stand corrected. No excuse. My apologies. I did not have my copy to hand and should have. And thank you for your own part in it.
Simon R We do not know each other to my knowledge. At this distance I am not sure how I to reassure you that I have no membership of, no interest in, and absolutely no time for the picture you have of evangelical theology and ecclesiology. Nor do I know where you got it from – though there are worrying extremes to be found in every tradition of course.
To be honest, David, that was the impression given – not least with such a flippant dismissal of the work of a significant Anglican theologian in the 20th Century. If you had looked more carefully at was being said in the Sykes Anglicanism volume about the Book of Common Prayer and the Anglican approach to liturgy and formation, you would have found plenty about a distinctive mode of Anglican mission and apologetics. That was in the days before Messy Church, of course, which is the panacea for all mission strategies now! But let’s not take our eye off the ball… Read more »