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Canon Eric James
Canon Eric James, who has died aged 87, was one of the Church of England�s
best known and most gifted priests; as a preacher and broadcaster he had few
equals, his pastoral skill was widely acknowledged and he had an acute,
creative mind.

6:25PM BST 02 May 2012

In many ways it was surprising that he never held high office in the Church,
and many believed that he should have done; but although he was for two spells
a cathedral residentiary canon, he was not an institution man, preferring
instead to be a ecclesiastical gadfly.

This he certainly was, and on many occasions it landed him in controversy. The
first sign of his lack of reverence for authority came early. While a student
at King�s College, London, he purloined the Bishop of London�s hat � a gift
from America in the 10-gallon style � and requested a gift to charity for its
return.

The Bishop was not amused; neither were the college authorities, and the
episcopal hat was returned with an abject apology.

Many years later there was trouble with another Bishop of London. Dr Gerald
Ellison�s translation from Chester to London led James to criticise the move
publicly on the grounds that the bishop was ill-equipped for the post .

Twenty years later he was in even deeper trouble when, in the course of a
sturdy defence of homosexual priests, he declared on television his own
homosexuality. Soon after this he gave up a weekly assignment on the BBC�s
Thought for the Day slot because of what he regarded as undue editorial
interference with his scripts, but he returned to regular broadcasting about a
year later.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude from these and other colourful
incidents that James was no more than a superficial controversialist. From
1978 to 1996 he held the office of Preacher of Gray�s Inn, and Sunday by
Sunday he attracted the attention and won the gratitude of a congregation of
judges and barristers with sermons of profound depth and striking contemporary
relevance. Four collections of these sermons were published and widely read.

His work as Director of Christian Action, in which he inherited the mantle of
Canon John Collins, was of considerable significance, not least in suggesting,
then servicing, an Archbishops� commission which produced the influential
report Faith in the City (1985).

Much less evident than any of this was James�s ministry as friend and
confessor to a great company of people, some in high office in Church and
State, who turned to him when they were in trouble and found a devout priest
of unusual insight who would never compromise on the essentials of the
Christian faith yet was ready to enter with the utmost sympathy into their
human pains and perplexities. His effectiveness in this area was undoubtedly
due to his own personal struggles, in which he was sustained by an undying
hope.

Eric Arthur James, who came from a middle-class background, was born at
Chadwell Heath, Dagenham, on April 14 1925. He left the local County School
early, his parents believing him to be the dunce of the family, and during the
Second World War worked at a heavily bombed wharf near Southwark Cathedral.
His talent as a musician took him into the cathedral at lunchtime for organ
lessons, and he gradually came under the influence of the Provost, Cuthbert
Bardsley, later to become Bishop of Coventry. He also went to hear Dr Donald
Soper on Tower Hill and Archbishop William Temple in City churches.

In this way his feet were set on the path to Holy Orders, and after a
preliminary year obtaining the necessary educational qualifications he was
admitted to King�s College, London, to read for a degree in Theology. There he
came under the influence of the Dean, Eric Abbott, who remained a close friend
until his death in 1983. A curacy was arranged at St Stephen�s Church,
Rochester Row, in Westminster � at that time one of the most dynamic parishes
in London. Under the exacting tutelage of its vicar, George Reindorp, later to
become Bishop of Guildford and then of Salisbury, James was given a fine
training; and when, in 1955, Trinity College, Cambridge, was looking for a new
chaplain, Reindorp � a Trinity man � recommended him for the post.

This was a very different world from that of Dagenham, but James took to it
easily, was readily accepted by the college and soon gained a reputation as a
pastor and preacher throughout the university. His first book, The Double Cure
(1957), on the practice of Confession in the presence of a priest, was well
received and had a second edition in 1980.

Cambridge was at that time experiencing something of a religious revival,
accompanied by a questioning of orthodox belief and practice. James became
fully immersed in all this, and when Mervyn Stockwood, vicar of the university
church, was appointed Bishop of Southwark, and John Robinson, Dean of Clare
College, became Bishop of Woolwich, he joined their company as vicar of St
George�s Church, Camberwell, and Warden of the Trinity College Mission, based
on St George�s. Thus began what came to be known as �South Bank Religion�.

But ministry in Southwark turned out to be considerably less exciting than it
had been in Cambridge. Camberwell was a tough area, the overwhelming majority
of whose inhabitants had long been out of touch with the Church and were
unlikely to be influenced by theological debates in Cambridge. James stayed
five years, experimenting with new forms of worship and group meetings in
flats, and exercising his pastoral skills in ways long remembered by the local
population.

This experience, discussed in a book on the priesthood, Odd Man Out (1962),
convinced him more than ever of the need for Church reform, and in 1964 he
left Camberwell to become Director of Parish and People � an organisation
designed to be the spearhead of change in all the key areas of the Church�s
life. The membership rose to more than 2,000 and included most of the able
young clergy as well as some of the bishops.

Equipped with a 10-point manifesto, James began to stump the country in an
attempt to rally support for the cause of reform. But the response in many
places was muted. The unorthodoxy expressed in Bishop John Robinson�s Honest
to God worried the older clergy, and the problems of parishes in the leafy
suburbs and country towns were not those of south London. In many quarters
James came to be regarded as a dangerous radical, and before long he was
driven to conclude that the prospects for reform were far from rosy.

In the hope of speeding the process, he and many of his supporters got
themselves elected to the Convocations and the Church Assembly, and James soon
began to make his presence felt in their debates. Local and national
conferences were organised, articles and books written, but progress remained
slow. Meanwhile, Bishop Stockwood had appointed James to be a residentiary
canon of Southwark Cathedral on the understanding that he would combine this
for a time with his work for Parish and People.

In 1969, on the completion of five years as its director and with clear signs
of the movement�s initial enthusiasm waning, James resigned and for the next
four years was simply a canon of Southwark. The duties were not overtaxing and
he continued to travel a great deal, speaking both in Britain and overseas in
the cause of Church reform and, increasingly, in the cause of social and
economic reform.

The rejection by the General Synod in 1972 of proposals for Anglican-Methodist
unity led, however, to his resignation from the Synod. He told the Archbishop
of Canterbury that a 45,000-mile journey through developing countries had
convinced him that he should �not waste further time in such a body�. In the
following year James�s close friendship with Mervyn Stockwood was shattered
and he resigned from his canonry when the bishop failed to support another of
the Cathedral canons in a dispute over education policy.

This was a bruising experience for James, but Robert Runcie, at that time
Bishop of St Albans, came to the rescue by appointing him a canon of St Albans
Abbey and Diocesan Missioner. In the less excitable atmosphere of
Hertfordshire, and encouraged by the relaxed friendship of Runcie and his
wife, James recovered. His diocesan responsibilities were not particularly
onerous and the national aspect of his ministry showed no sign of diminishing.

Indeed, in 1979 he took on the post of Director of Christian Action, which
required frequent visits to London. Ever since the retirement of Canon John
Collins in 1973 this organisation had been seeking a purpose and a person, and
James, quickly perceiving that its pioneering days were ended, decided to
channel its still substantial financial resources into social and political
work being undertaken by other groups.

He also used the position, as Collins had always done, as a base for his own
personal ministry and wrote the official and widely acclaimed biography of
Bishop John Robinson (1987).

Following his contretemps with the BBC, a volume of his �Thoughts for the
Day�, with a foreword by then Archbishop Runcie, appeared in 1990 and he spent
some time in South and East Africa gathering material for a biography of
Bishop Trevor Huddleston.

In 1984 James had, somewhat improbably, been appointed a Chaplain to the
Queen, and in 1993 he was awarded a Lambeth DD; but these embraces of the
Establishment were too light to affect the turbulent style which was
maintained until his final years, when serious illness intervened.

Canon Eric James, born April 14 1925, died May 1 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9241680/Canon-Eric-James.html


-- 
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk