10 Downing Street announces:
Bishop of Norwich: 3 May 2019
The Queen has approved the nomination of The Right Reverend Graham Barham Usher for election as Bishop of Norwich.
The Queen has approved the nomination of The Right Reverend Graham Barham Usher, BSc, MA, Suffragan Bishop of Dudley, for election as Bishop of Norwich in succession to The Right Reverend Graham Richard James, BA, following his resignation on 28th February 2019.
Background
The Right Reverend Graham Barham Usher, studied ecological science at the University of Edinburgh and theology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He trained for ministry at Westcott House, Cambridge. He served his title at St Mary the Virgin, Nunthorpe, in the Diocese of York and was ordained priest in 1997. Following the completion of his curacy in 1999, Graham was appointed Vicar of Holy Trinity, North Ormesby. In 2004 he became Rector of Hexham in the Diocese of Newcastle and had the additional responsibility of Area Dean of Hexham between 2006 and 2011. In 2007 he was also appointed Honorary Canon of St Cyprian’s Cathedral in Kumasi, Ghana.
Graham took up his current appointment as Bishop of Dudley in 2014. Graham maintains an interest in ecology as one of the Church of England’s environmental bishops and in medical ethics as a board member of the Human Tissue Authority.
The Diocese of Norwich has more:
Next Bishop of Norwich announced
Downing Street has today announced that the Rt Revd Graham Usher will become the 72nd Bishop of Norwich.Bishop Graham, 48, is currently the Bishop of Dudley. Prior to this he was Rector of Hexham in Northumberland, following his time working in Middlesbrough. He has also spent time living and working in Ghana, Africa.
Following the announcement, Bishop Graham will tour the Diocese this afternoon, including visits to a local housing trust, a primary school garden and outdoor reflective space, a church after-school club run by volunteers, and culminating in a special Evensong at Norwich Cathedral to which everyone is invited…
Later in the same press release, it says:
…As Bishop of Dudley since 2014, Bishop Graham has served the people of the Diocese of Worcester, working particularly in the areas of clergy wellbeing and vocation, parish mission weekends and pilgrimage walks, leading on safeguarding, establishing two resourcing churches, and supporting ministry in schools. He has chaired the Churches’ Housing Association of Dudley and District which provides the women’s refuge, housing for homeless teenagers, and residential support for elderly people who live with long-term mental ill health. Within the civic life of Dudley he has served as Dudley Council’s Independent Person for standards and led the community strand of the ‘Forging Ahead’ vision for Dudley.
Bishop Graham maintains an interest in ecology as a member of the Church of England’s Environmental Working Group and in medical ethics as a board member of the Human Tissue Authority. He is a member of the International Commission for Anglican Orthodox Theological Dialogue. He is a keen beekeeper and regularly tweets @bishopdudley. He has written about spirituality and landscape: Places of Enchantment, Meeting God in Landscapes.
You can watch his initial remarks following the announcement on YouTube at https://youtu.be/tycJgGJAqhs, where he talks about the awe-inspiring Christian faith, the Christ-like humility we seek as Christians, and the calling of the Church to offer all that it can in love. “I’m looking forward to leading a diocese that seeks, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to inspire the imagination of more people, especially the young, about the Christian faith.”
Bishop Graham is married to Rachel, a GP, and they have two teenage children. He studied ecological science at the University of Edinburgh and theology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, before training for ministry at Westcott House, Cambridge. Following his ordination as a deacon in 1996, he began his ministry in Middlesbrough in the Diocese of York, first as curate at St Mary the Virgin, Nunthorpe, and then as Vicar of Holy Trinity, North Ormesby, a parish with severe levels of social need and child poverty. In 2004 he became Rector of Hexham in the Diocese of Newcastle and had the additional responsibility of being Area Dean of Hexham between 2006 and 2011. In 2007 he was also appointed Honorary Canon of St Cyprian’s Cathedral in Kumasi, Ghana, the place of his early childhood.
Am I in the middle of a dream? Is this still possible? A Westcott-trained double graduate, who hasn’t been anywhere near Cranmer Hall (apart from when he was thirty-odd miles away as Vicar of Hexham)? Well, this is something to celebrate, and I can only guess that either Norwich Diocese has been very brave and very strong; or Graham Usher has got something massive on Welby. In all seriousness, he is a worthy successor to Graham James, and I know there will be huge delight – and relief – in Norwich this weekend. A post from Anthony Archer, saying what… Read more »
I very much liked what I saw in the video, other than one thing. He says that he wants to share the good news “especially with young people so that we are a growing church”. (I might not have the precise words.) That’s modern mission, focused on the church. True mission is focused on people and God. True mission is blind to whether people are young or old; male or female; black, white, Arab or Asian. True mission loves people and wants them to know God, not for the Church but for their sake. True mission doesn’t care whether people… Read more »
“Wants them to know God” … Years ago, I read a book about the struggle between monotheism and polytheism in the ancient Mediterranean. The book had too simplistic a view of history, and too benign a view of polytheism, but the book made an argument I find compelling: That not only does monotheism teach there is One God, but all too often throughout history its adherents teach there is only One Way to believe in that One God. How many wars, how many doctrinal disputes (inter- and intra-religious), how many crusades and inquisitions and schisms and jihads, how many cries… Read more »
In my experience of worshipping in mosques and sharing in many discussion groups with other women at East London Mosque, I have been moved and deeply affected by what appears to me to be the very real encounters with God that can take place in Muslim lives, and the profound impact that has on their care of the elderly, their commitment to community and family, their personal self-discipline, their devotion and their devoted lives. Equally, at the heart of my spirituality my personal experience is contemplative, in the Carmelite tradition. And yet, that contemplative mindset and disposition was nurtured in… Read more »
You are a marvelous writer, Susannah. Thank you.
There are times I confront that “road to nowhere” — and I flinch. But you are right about the opportunities in the Now Here.
Peter: ‘There are times I confront that “road to nowhere” — and I flinch.’
Me too.
With this, together with the appointments of Sarah Mullally and Vivienne Faull, the evangelical takeover appears to be on hold
Would that be Vivienne Faull who trained at st John’s Nottingham?
…and Sarah Mullally who is very much in the Evangelical frame of mind – and is now Bishop of London because of moderate Evangelical lobbying?
I don’t know about the lobbying but the points are: 1. There are evangelicals and there are evangelicals – same could be said of all traditions. An evangelical who draws theology and practice from a variety of traditions while remaining evangelical at heart is likely to be welcomed by a broad spectrum of Anglicans (and others). 2. The labels no longer work in the way they did. Most of the ordinands and Readers I teach do not find any of the usual labels describe them. However, they are keen to preach from the Bible and draw others to faith in… Read more »
She’s the Bishop of London because she was the best person for the job on paper and at interview. But of course the paranoia level about appointments won’t let TA people believe that. Sadly.
“But of course the paranoia level about appointments won’t let TA people believe that. Sadly.”
Good grief! One person makes a comment and becomes an opportunity to condemn every single person who posts, comments, and reads TA.
Is that any different from the broad characterization being condemned?
I thought I might permit myself a brief comment on this thread, not least as a fellow colleague on the London CNC, the Bishop of Willesden, also has. As a gloss on his comment, the CNC nominates that person whom it believes God is calling to the see. But I want to disappoint those TA commentators who infer that churchmanship is a factor. Of course all aspects of a candidate’s ministry and theological and other education form part of the discernment process, but we are mercifully a million miles away from the days when the college someone trained at (for… Read more »
Bishop Broadbent’s comment infers CNCs choose the best person for the job based on what appears on paper, and how candidates perform at interview. It seems more than a gloss to suggest, if I understand you correctly, that God has already chosen, and is indeed already calling, His preferred candidate, and the CNC just discerns who this is. How, then, has it been ascertained that God never considers churchmanship or which college might have provided the most appropriate training, when making His choice? Why is there no drawing of lots, as in choosing a Coptic Pope? Do CNC members believe… Read more »
What the CNC does, imperfectly, is best described in the report Discerning in Obedience (GS Misc 1171) in which Professor Oliver O’Donovan’s group provides inter alia a detailed theological exposition of discernment. That task is one for the whole Church, but necessarily needs to be made the responsibility of a delegated body. Drawing lots or indeed voting more widely through synods or councils (as is common in other provinces of the Anglican Communion, e.g. TEC, SEC or CiW) doesn’t remove the need for discernment. The apostles needed to devise a process whereby Matthias’ name appeared on the paper (or stone,… Read more »
Surely discernment of Christian vocation involves a collection of data, all of which are drawn together, prayed and reflected upon, and while the process may be humanly fallible, I think it’s reasonable to believe that God through the Holy Spirit aids and supports the process. I have explored Christian vocation three times: first over the possibility of being called to priesthood back in the late 1980s. It was a gradual and step-by-step reflective process, with considerable openness about it, leading towards the prospect of training for ordination. At a late stage, over the course of a weekend at Launde Abbey,… Read more »