Updated to add press reports
Press release from Number 10
Suffragan Bishop of Woolwich: Dr Dorgu
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
First published: 20 December 2016The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Prebendary Dr Woyin Karowei Dorgu, MBBS. BA, MA, to the Suffragan See of Woolwich.
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Prebendary Dr Woyin Karowei Dorgu, MBBS. BA, MA, Vicar of St John the Evangelist Upper Holloway, in the Diocese of London, to the Suffragan See of Woolwich, in the Diocese of Southwark in succession to the Right Reverend Michael Geoffrey Ipgrave, OBE, MA, on his translation to the See of Lichfield 10 June 2016.
Background
Reverend Prebendary Dr Dorgu is aged 58. He was a GP. He studied at the London Bible College for his BA, and studied for his ordination at Oak Hill Theological College from 1993 to 1995 and also holds an MA in missiology. He was Curate at St Mark’s Tollington in London Diocese from 1995 to 1998, before moving to be Curate at Upper Holloway in the same diocese until 2000. From 2000 to 2012 he was Team Vicar at Upper Holloway before becoming Vicar in 2012 and from 2016 he has been Prebendary at St Paul’s Cathedral.
He is married to Mosun, a doctor. She is a consultant child psychiatrist who works for the NHS and they have 2 grown-up children.
His interests include reading, cycling, travelling, cooking for guests and he is a keen Arsenal FC supporter.
Southwark diocesan website Bishop of Woolwich Appointed
London diocesan website New Bishop of Woolwich announced
Dr Dorgu will be consecrated in Southwark Cathedral on St Patrick’s Day 17 March 2017.
Press reports
Harriet Sherwood The Guardian Church of England appoints first black bishop in 20 years
Ruth Gledhill Christian Today First Nigerian Bishop In Church of England Counters Islamist Terror With Message Of Love In Jesus Christ
He’s a Gooner. He must be OK.
[Gooner – a supporter of Arsenal Football Club – ed.]
So he celebrates diversity including sexuality and at the same time holds fast to the Church’s traditional teaching on sex and marriage. No change there then.
Do I dare ask what the London Bible College is?
Is it absolutely essential to support a football team in order to be a bishop? Scarcely an appointment seems to be made these days without an incoming bishop offering his unsolicited opinion on which eleven-man squad is preferable to all others. I don’t for a moment doubt the sincerity of Bishop Karowei’s emotional investment in some guys who wear a particular colour when they play football (as opposed to all people who play football wearing garments of other, lesser hues), even if I’ll never ever understand it. I guess an arbitrary preference for one football team over another is something… Read more »
This can only be good for the Church – Diversity living into Unity. Deo gratias!
RJB – In this particular instance, the Bishop-designate’s support of Arsenal is of great historic relevance – the club’s previous name was Woolwich Arsenal, after all.
…and as a long-suffering Villa fan, I’ve taken great offence at the hectoring Calvinists comment!! The club was actually an offshoot of the local Wesleyan Methodist chapel, as it happens… /tangent
According to an article on the BBC website The CofE is being described as ‘institutionally racist’ by Rose Hudson-Wilkin in an article about this appointment. I have found the CofE to be institutionally a lot of things (eg. middle class)
I suppose ‘diversity’ (or the lack thereof in the church) means different things to different people depending on viewpoint – class/gender/sexual orientation/educational etc. and of course race.
Well, Daniel, a two second search on google will answer your question (note that it’s no longer called the London Bible College).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Theology
To rjb: splendid ideas there. Let’s get violence off the streets into the church where it belongs
“Arsenal for the real presence in the Eucharist”… as a lifelong Gooner, and having catholic inclinations, I’ll settle for that. Spurs would of course stand for heresy and anathema. However, as a footballer myself, I have to stand for my own beliefs, not what other people believe. As a goalkeeper I’m almost always wrong anyway: people tend to remember the mistakes, when often it’s down to your defenders. I just love the way that football can create common ground with workmates, a language we can share and understand, a source of humour and deprecation, something less serious than religion, and… Read more »
Prize to Fr William for the funniest one-liner I think I’ve ever seen here at Thinking Anglicans.
So there are now, in The Guardian’s phrase, two black bishops in the Church of England.
How long will that be the case?
‘According to an article on the BBC website The CofE is being described as ‘institutionally racist’ by Rose Hudson-Wilkin’
and on the TODAY programme.
While listening to Canon Hudson-Wilkin and others on the radio News, I reflected that it is not so long since the Church of England justified its racist policies, by direct appeal to the Holy Bible, itself.
Deja vu anyone ?
I should have appended this reference to my previous comment :
‘When parliament voted compensation in 1833 – to former slave owners rather than the slaves themselves – the church received £8,823 8s 9d, about £500,000 in today’s money, for the loss of slave labour on its Codrington plantation in Barbados. The contemporary Bishop of Exeter and his business associates received even more, nearly £13,000.’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/feb/09/religion.world
So he has no problem with ssm, including for clergy??
Clergy can be Stipendiary or SSM…
Isn’t it odd that we know more about which football team the bishop-elect supports than we do about his Christian beliefs? His CV tells us what he has done but nothing about his beliefs on key moral issues like divorce, abortion, immigration, links with the armed forces etc. That’s not a particular criticism of the bishop-elect himself but a general observation that the Church of England doesn’t seem to think sharing such things is important when announcing a new bishop. That seems wrong to me.
Ahaha I like what you did there, +Pete
“Clergy can be Stipendiary or SSM…”
Presumably you mean the stipend stops if we get married?
Maybe Kate, but I think the key trait for any Bishop is their pastoral capacity and openness to love. That, if you like, should be the common ground on which all church members can welcome their new bishop, whatever their theological views, and then things go on from there. To me, above all, the bishop is a pastor, a loving human being. Of course, certain theological views can have pastoral consequences, but I think at the start, common ground should be sought because he or she is everyone’s bishop, rather than accentuating theological differences. If more autonomy was afforded to… Read more »
‘If more autonomy was afforded to local priests, PCCs, churches, communities to explore spirituality in their own unique ways, and if bishops had less grandiose roles in pontificating on what should be believed, then it would matter even less what particular slant any bishop took on things’ I don’t know if you really believe this, Susannah. For instance, in your vision of Anglicanism, should local priests, PCCs, churches and communities be freed to explore the spirituality of congregational life implicit in the practice of lay presidency at the Eucharist? If the answer is ‘No’, is that because one’s theology of… Read more »
Tim, I routinely appreciate your contributions, and thank you for this one too. I’m glad you’ve challenged me on it, because – to be transparent – I haven’t really got it all worked out in my head. Being of catholic inclination myself, your challenge does make me stop and think, but I can’t really see why the Holy Spirit can’t work through lay people administering the eucharist. See, I’m really not fussed by all the intricacies of theology. And YES, I think that God works in the actual lives of actual people at a local and one-to-one level. And I… Read more »
Susannah,I believe that a church is a worship community not a pastoral community. That is the essential difference between our views on things.
Susanah Clark I found your comment so open, thoughtful, modest and inspirational. I wish more us were like you, myself included.
I have lost confidence and faith in the Churches, but what you write is very refreshing, even so.
Thanks for your reply Susannah. I’ll try to respond adequately to it after December 25th!!!
I am actually quite a crap person, Laurence. Life is so imperfect. You probably know that as well as I do. But we can still love though, can’t we? Thank you for being so sweet.
@ Tim Chesterton: Yeah I had already done that. I was just been a smarty-pants.
Kate, I don’t know how you separate the “worship” from the pastoral; how you separate discipleship from worshiping the Lord Jesus. Matthew 25 draws that out pretty clearly.
Susannah, your comments about same-sex marriages: “a local church . . . should be able to develop its own conscience-led theology and practice, responding to actual people and local communities” may be called congregationalism by some, but has episcopal blessing. The bishop of Willesden once described “bringing canon law into line with custom and practice” as exactly how the C of E, in its great wisdom, has always worked.
Go up 10 places!
Susannah, just to be clear – there is a difference theologically between ‘lay people administering the eucharist’ and ‘lay people PRESIDING at the eucharist’. My question was about your view of the second. You responded by talking about the first. Were you actually talking about the second too? As to your reply, I have a second question. Are you saying that there is actually no objective standard of truth/error, right/wrong – and so the Holy Spirit might lead different congregations to take diametrically opposed positions on moral questions (which, it seems to me, is the same thing as saying that… Read more »
I apologise for the delay in replying, Tim (been in bed with a chesty cough and not thinking clearly enough to reply thoughtfully). With reference to the eucharist, I was speaking as a recipient, not as one who administers or presides. And from a recipient’s point of view (well, this one) what matters to me is the substantial presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ when I eat the bread and drink the wine, the body and blood of Jesus. And because I believe only God can work the miracle of his sacrament, theological arguments about who actually… Read more »
Susannah, thank you for your response to my comment. Appreciated.
And, it is I, who must thank you, for many thanks, and in partic for being sweet, thyself.
I found your recent comment regarding the eucharist rather lovely. And with ring of lived-truth. The