|
Witness to the WordA history of Oak Hill College, 1932-2000Battle-scarred but strongWITNESS TO THE WORD Oak Hill is a theological college training men and women for Anglican (and other) ministry. As a distinctively evangelical institution, it has always needed to battle for approval, growth, accreditation and influence in the Church of England, as this record of its history demonstrates. Yet the foreword is by Dr. George Carey, a former staff member and valued college footballer; and at various points in the history one encounters a striking number of other former staff and students who would later be given influential and hierarchical positions in the CofE. Nonetheless Oak Hill has not had an easy ride. I would have liked to know more of the reasons for this than Heinze and Wheaton tell. Was it simply that conservative evangelicalism was generally despised through most of the 20th century? Or was there any truth in the reputation Oak Hill had in some quarters of being non-academic, theologically-shallow and uninterested in other views? Wheaton was himself principal for 15 years and Heinze was college dean and vice-principal. Therefore this is very much 'Oak Hill from the inside' by those committed to a generous interpretation of its past, and it reads in places like a family diary by two loyal members of the family. There are times when one feels the writers know more than they wish to tell, or are hiding their true feelings about events or people, past and present, for the sake of charity. Nonetheless, they chart the college's history engagingly, and thereby offer us a particular perspective on the state of evangelicalism and the Church of England through the last 70 years. Here we encounter the 1928 Prayer book, the Second World War, Billy Graham crusades, Robinson and Cupitt, Stott and Packer, Keele, the charismatic movement, Faith in the City, and debates over women's ministry and homosexuality. Oak Hill, like the rest of us, has been granted moments of strength and success and moments of weakness and doom. There is much to be learned from the appalling way it was treated in the early 1990s. Yet it is interesting to note that it seems currently to be rising on the crest of a wave of confidence, under the providence of God, and combining a conservative evangelical position with high academic standards. Heinze and Wheaton are to be congratulated on combining the serious accounts of course developments and council meetings with the lighter side of college life. One student in the 1950s opened the door of his study to show his fiancee in, only to discover that his friends had emptied it of all his furniture, and filled it with a horse belonging to the principal's wife! One also learns of Maurice Wood, principal in the 1960s and then bishop of Norwich, cleaning the toilets; and of Oak Hill being mistaken for an agricultural college, due to the farm produce the students helped to grow and sell at one time. All in all, the read is good and the story worthwhile if you know Oak Hill, or if (like me - though I trained at Wycliffe Hall) you know some of the characters involved. It may be of less interest to others, but Oak Hill is now part of our British evangelical heritage, and many of us owe it more than we know. We should pray for it to prosper. James Dudley-Smith,
|