Which Anglican priest and bishop was a friend of CS Lewis, mentor to a future Archbishop of Canterbury, and baptised a philosopher on her deathbed?

Simon Barrington-Ward (see photo) died of Covid-19 on Easter Saturday 2020, full of years (89) and full of faith. He had served eminently as general secretary of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and as Bishop of Coventry.

The son of Robert Barrington-Ward, editor of The Times from 1941 to 1948, Simon attended Eton, where contemporaries included Douglas Hurd. He read history at Magdalene College, Cambridge, then lectured for a year (1953-54) at the Free University, West Berlin. There, amid the broken city, his life was transformed and remade by Christ through a small Bible study group.

He would become a theologian of mission, pastor, visionary and spiritual father to many throughout his life, including me.

In 1982 Simon’s prayer life was transfigured by meeting a Russian monk, Archimandrite (now Saint) Sophrony, who led the Monastery of St John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, Essex.

If you are interested in deepening your prayer life, read Simon’s book The Jesus Prayer (1996). It is a simple introduction to an ancient way of prayer, born in the Orthodox Church, and a way of entering into the river of prayer that flows from the heart of God.

If the study of mission and world Christianity draws you, read his Love Will Out (1988), a collection of his profound CMS newsletters. In his introduction he mentioned his cohering theme of exchange: “It is a constant coming together of Heaven and Earth, universal and particular, divine and human, judgment and mercy, spiritual and material, ideal and reality, structure and community, joy and sorrow, in a whole range of varied contexts.”

If you are attracted to philosophy, read The Christic Cogito, on Hegel, one of his four articles republished in Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward (2022), which I have coedited with Ian Randall. The book has 12 other diverse chapters considering his life and influence.

Simon was chaplain at Magdalene College, Cambridge, when CS Lewis was a fellow and professor of medieval and renaissance English literature. They used to go on long walks together along the River Cam.

Simon’s family lent me four suitcases of his papers and his computer disc. On it, I found a sermon he preached at Little St Mary’s, Cambridge, “For Gillian Rose”.

Gillian was a Jewish professor of social and political thought at the University of Warwick, in the diocese of Coventry, and an ardent seeker of the kingdom of God. She had had discussions with Rowan Williams over a period of ten years, and had befriended Simon, whom she asked to baptise her when she was dying of cancer. She died in 1995, on the day of her baptism, aged 48.

CS Lewis, Justin Welby and Gillian Rose are three of the countless wise people, of all races and backgrounds, who have exchanged gifts with Simon Barrington-Ward. Join them. His writings are nourishing.