David Jenkins (bishop)

Early life

Jenkins was born in Bromley, Kent, to Lionel Jenkins, who worked in a bank, and his wife Dora (née Page). His family were Methodist. He was educated at St Dunstan's College, Catford. Having attended a Church of England ordination conference at Bangalore during his service in India, he took up scholarship to enter Queen's College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1954.

During the Second World War, he was called up in the autumn of 1943. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery after officer training at Harrogate in April 1945. At the end of the war he was a staff officer at General Headquarters in India. In 1946 he was attached to the 10th Indian Field Regiment, Royal Indian Artillery before its disbandment. He demobilised as captain in 1947.

Ordained ministry

Jenkins trained for ordination at Lincoln Theological College. He was ordained priest by the Bishop of Birmingham. He served as curate at St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham.

At the time of his consecration he had been a lecturer in theology at the University of Oxford, Chaplain and Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, and worked for the World Council of Churches and the William Temple Foundation before being appointed Professor of Theology at the University of Leeds in 1979. Jenkins left Leeds in 1984 with the title Emeritus Professor. In addition to his teaching appointments Jenkins had been Examining Chaplain to the Bishops of Lichfield (1956–69), Newcastle upon Tyne (1957–69), Bristol (1958–84), Wakefield (1978–84) and Bradford (1979–84).

His selection as Bishop of Durham was controversial due to allegations that he held heterodox beliefs, particularly regarding the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. Between his selection and consecration, he said in an interview: "I wouldn't put it past God to arrange a virgin birth if he wanted. But I don't think he did." His widely quoted comment about the resurrection of Christ being "just a conjuring trick with bones", is a misrepresentation; his actual words as recorded on television say the reverse; the resurrection is not a conjuring trick with bones. The original line appears to have been "[the Resurrection] is real. That's the point. All I said was 'literally physical'. I was very careful in the use of language. After all, a conjuring trick with bones proves only that somebody's very clever at a conjuring trick with bones." According to his BBC obituary, he considered "the resurrection was not a single event, but a series of experiences that gradually convinced people that Jesus's life, power, purpose and personality were actually continuing."

Three days after his consecration as bishop on 6 July 1984, York Minster was struck by lightning, resulting in a disastrous fire which some interpreted as a sign of divine wrath at Jenkins's appointment.

As a bishop, Jenkins was known for his willingness to speak his mind. In 1989 he made an extended appearance on the television discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Steven Rose, Frank Cioffi, Dorothy Rowe and Michael Bentine.

After leaving office in 1994 he continued to voice his opinions, such as in a BBC interview in 2003.

Jenkins also became identified with opposition to the policies of the Thatcher and Major governments and subsequently was a critic of New Labour. He argued that what these governments shared was a dogmatic faith on the market which had many pseudo-religious elements to it. This led him to write at length about what he saw as the intellectual deficiencies of economic theory and market theorising and its pseudo-theological character.

His book Market Whys and Human Wherefores: Thinking Again About Markets, Politics, and People was an extended layman's critique of economic theory and its application to policy, in which he described himself as an 'anxious idiot' using the latter term in its original meaning of an ordinary person with no professional expertise. It nevertheless diagnosed many of the problems with economic theory and its application to a deregulated economy that would later be seen as prescient in the light of the global economic crisis of 2007 onwards. In Dilemmas of Freedom, he also challenged the idea that markets created freedom. In Price, Cost, Excellence and Worth: Can the idea of a university survive the force of the market? he similarly questioned whether they were compatible with the idea of a university while in The Market and Health Care, he addressed the issue of health care in a similar vein.

In 2005, he became one of the first clerics in the Church of England to participate to the public blessing of a civil partnership between two homosexual men, one of whom was a Church of England priest.

In 2006, Jenkins was banned from preaching in some of his local churches after reportedly "swearing" in a sermon, using the words "bloody" and "damn". In 2002 he published his memoir The Calling of a Cuckoo: Not Quite an Autobiography.

Personal life

In 1949, Jenkins married Stella Mary Peet, known as Mollie. She died in 2008. The couple had two sons and two daughters. His daughter Rebecca, an author of crime novels set in 19th-century Durham, acted as his assistant and PR officer while he was the Bishop of Durham. Jenkins died on 4 September 2016 at the age of 91.

Selected works

He wrote numerous books on Christian theology which include:

He also gave the Bampton Lectures on the Incarnation at Oxford.