The Reformed constituency in the Church of England needs to get solidly behind the end-of-Piccadilly-line Oak Hill, rather than steering its ordinands towards ‘evangelical’, liberal leaning theological colleges in old universities. Here are some reasons why from a parish plodder:
* Oak Hill is the only dog on the track. Our constituency needs a distinctively Reformed evangelical ministerial training centre in the Church of England to nourish us with the best possible theological water supply and enable us to have a real, positive influence for the gospel in the wider church and in post-Christian Britain. The influence of the independent Kingham Hill Trust allows for evangelical succession in Oak Hill’s principal. Of course, Richard Turnbull is doing a fantastic job as principal of Wycliffe Hall in Oxford. But, without the safeguard of an independent trust, Wycliffe will be the victim of ecclesiastical Buggins’s turn. With respect, what planet are you on if you think Wycliffe won’t go to a Fulcrum ‘evangelical’ when Dr. Turnbull goes?
* We will lose it if we don’t. The Australian New Testament scholar, Dr. David Peterson, who became principal in 1996, did to Oak Hill what Brian Clough did to Nottingham Forest in the 1970s. He turned it into a centre of excellence — albeit it took him ten years to do it. But then theological colleges are not football clubs. Despite the recent problems over the frankly incomprehensible Federal Vision theology, which has been unhelpfully blogged around the college, the positivity has continued under the new manager (principal), Dr. Michael Ovey. The evidence of this is the outstanding apologia for the biblical doctrine of penal substitution, Pierced for our Transgressions (IVP, 2007), written by Dr. Ovey and two of his students. If the Reformed evangelical constituency doesn’t get behind Oak Hill, then the liberal establishment can say we don’t want our own theological college. And they would be right.
