Press release from Number 10
Nomination of Suffragan Bishop of Tonbridge: 27 March 2018
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Simon David Burton-Jones to this post.
Published 27 March 2018
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing StreetThe Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Simon David Burton-Jones, MA, BTh, Archdeacon of Rochester, in the Diocese of Rochester, to the Suffragan See of Tonbridge, in the Diocese of Rochester. He succeeds the Right Reverend Brian Colin Castle, MA, PhD, who resigned on the 30 November 2015.
That’s the press release in full. There are more details on the Rochester diocesan website: New Bishop of Tonbridge Announced.
This is a very unsatisfactory announcement omitting may key details that enquiring minds wish to know of all new bishops. What football team does he support? Does he enjoy walking? This, and the diocesan announcement, focus to a lamentable degree, on his actual career and accomplishments. Highly un-Anglican…
Does he like hill-walking? One demands to know. Baking in his spare-time maybe?
Obviously the new Bishop isn’t married to a man since this would have meant he’d be sacked. But is he married to a woman? I think we must be told.
Did he go Wycliffe or Oak Hill– one must be told asap !
After all the snippy comments on other threads about how inappropriate it is to include interests like hill walking, football teams and the like, or to mention the prospective bishop’s marital status, doesn’t it seem a bit unfair to the Diocese of Rochester to make frivolous comments when that information is left out?
I don’t claim to follow these things closely, but is two and a half years to make the appointment rather long for a suffragen? In the secular world, one often unkindly assumes that if there’s a long gap then an internal appointment is made, it’s because they were hoping to find someone better externally but failed.
The Diocesan release might have avoided various irrelevancies, but also clearly lacks warmth and tends towards pomposity. Included within it, though, is a link to a personal video message from Simon himself. In person, that shows him to be warm and personable. He talks about his priorities. In my opinion, it is the single best piece of communication I have seen from a newly appointed bishop.
“it’s because they were hoping to find someone better externally but failed.”
Yes…it is an unkind assumption. It’s been a long time but maybe the ‘right’ person was under their noses all along and they made the foolish assumption that someone external would be best. Sometimes it is and sometimes….. It’s not the first time the local person eventually got the job.
In an earlier thread about the nomination of John Perumbalath to be Bishop of Bradwell, I commented that it was a pity that he could not have been the next Bishop of Tonbridge, for which we have waited so long.
But now we learn that John is to be consecrated in St Paul’s at the same time as the new Bishop of Tonbridge, both of them Archdeacons being internally promoted. Could this be a sign? But what of?!
Perhaps it’s a sign that some Archdeacons make good Bishops! (I wouldn’t dare universalise that statement…)
Kate: he’s done another one one since … it’s on the Rochester website.