Gavin Ashenden

Gavin Roy Pelham Ashenden (born 1954) is a British Anglican clergyman. He was an Honorary Chaplain to the Queen from 2008 until his resignation in 2017. He was ordained in the Church of England, but left it in 2017. That year was consecrated a missionary bishop by the Christian Episcopal Church, a continuing Anglican jurisdiction outside of the Anglican Communion.^[1]

Education

Ashenden was educated at Rokeby Preparatory School and as a music scholar at The King's School, Canterbury. He graduated from the University of Bristol, with a degree in Law, and trained for the Anglican priesthood at Oak Hill Theological College, where he read for a B.A. in Theology. Whilst at Oak Hill he was also sent as part of his training to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist^[2] in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex,^[3] where he came under the influence of the Abbot, Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov).

He completed postgraduate work with the Jesuits at Heythrop College of the University of London with an M.Th. the Psychology of Religion. Some years later (1994 to 1999) whilst chaplain and member of faculty at the University of Sussex completed a doctorate on the life and work of Charles Williams. He published Alchemy and Integration, a study of Williams' work in 2007, which was reviewed by the Rt Rev'd Rowan Williams^[4] in the Times Literary Supplement.^[5]

Posts in the church and university

He was ordained in Southwark Cathedral in 1980 and served as a parish priest for ten years in the Diocese of Southwark; firstly at St James, Bermondsey,^[6] and then as Vicar of Hamsey Green in Sanderstead.^[7] In Sanderstead he worked alongside Thomas Smail who had been director of the Fountain Trust.

In 1989 he was appointed to the post of University Chaplain and senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Sussex where he lectured in Literature and the Psychology of Religion. He was appointed a 'Senior Officer' of the University in 1994. He convened and taught the M.A. Programme 'Monotheism and Mysticism in Critical Theology. From 1995-2003 he also lectured in Systematic Theology at the University of Brighton.

He was appointed as a canon of Chichester Cathedral in 2003, and then to a further theological canonry (Bursalis Prebendary) in 2006. He was an Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Chichester, and Diocesan Advisor on New Age Religions.

In 1998 he was a Church of England delegate to the 8th Council of the World Council of Churches held in Harare, Zimbabwe. He was a member of the General Synod of the Church of England for from 1995-2012. He has lectured in the United States, most recently as a visiting theologian for the Lutheran Church in Oregon.^[8]

In 2012 he took early retirement and moved to a House for Duty post as vicar of St Martin de Gouray in Gorey, Jersey.^[9]

Media

In 2008 he was appointed to be the presenter of the Faith and Ethics programme for BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey, until 2012.^[10] From 2009 to 2012 he also presented the BBC podcast Faith in England.^[11]

He was invited by the editor to become a columnist on the Jersey Evening Post, 2013, where his weekly page on orthodox Christianity and its critique of modern culture caused both strong support and opposition.^[12]

He is a contributor to Anglican Ink^[13] and a regular contributor to Anglican TV^[14]

Other appointments

He was Vice Chairman of The Keston Institute during the 1980s,^[15] and a Director of Aid to Russian Christians,^[16] in which role he engaged in smuggling Bibles and medicine to the Underground Church in the Soviet Union during that decade.

He is a member of the Society of the Sacred Cross, and was previously a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus.^[17] He was previously a member of Forward in Faith. He combines the experience of and allegiance to the Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical and Charismatic strands of the Church of England.

In 2016 Ashenden was appointed to the Board of Reference for Global Anglican Future Conference^[18][19] He also joined Anglican TV Ministries as their UK correspondent.^[20]

Resignation from the royal ecclesiastical household

In early 2017 Ashenden resigned from his position as chaplain after speaking out against a service at St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow in which the Koran was read and because of his views on Islam and orthodox Christianity.^[21] Ashenden concluded that being a member of the Ecclesiastical Household^[22] meant he could not "speak out on matters he felt strongly about"^[23] and that it was his duty and calling to speak on issues relating to the integrity of the Christian faith.^[24]

One of the consequences of his resignation was a variety of media engagements in several countries, including Fox News in the United States,^[25]' The Bolt Report in Australia,^[26] and James Delingpole's Delingpole Podcast in the UK.^[27]

Ashenden has written on Russian Orthodox spirituality, 'A Guidebook to the Spiritual Life', (ed. P.Toon),^[28] The Oxford Inklings,^[29] and C.S Lewis, 'Persona and Paradox'^[30]

On 17 March 2017 Dr Ashenden lodged a deed in the High Court of London under the Clerical Disabilities Act 1870, to relinquish his orders within the Church of England.^[31]

Consecration as Missionary Bishop

In September 2017 it was announced by Archbishop Theodore Casimes that Dr Ashenden had been consecrated as a missionary bishop in the UK and Europe by the Christian Episcopal Church.^[32]

References

External links

• Official website