'Be grasped by Jesus', bishop tells students

The Right Revd Nick Baines (right), Bishop of Croydon and Trinity graduate, after the Trinity Valedictory Service with his former tutor, Revd Gervais Angel.

8 June 2009

‘We are perpetrating a fraud if we don't look at all like the Jesus of the Gospels,' the Right Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon and Trinity graduate in the 1980s, told Trinity students and staff at our Valedictory Service on 6 June. ‘We need to be grasped by Jesus.'

After Jesus' resurrection, he said, the disciples' world view was changed. Our beliefs are not just a set of intellectual propositions to which we give assent in church; they are something to which we commit ourselves, body, mind and spirit.

Speaking on the 65th anniversary of the D Day landings, Nick Baines drew a parallel between the Allied Forces' fight to establishing a crucial bridgehead on enemy soil, even though the war was not over, and Christian action in a hostile world. ‘We are so grasped by Jesus that we keep alive the promises of hope,' he said.

He suggested that those going into new ministry should not see themselves as ‘parachuting in', expecting to bring immediate relief to the situation. We move into any new form of ministry with ‘confident humility', first as a disciple of Jesus Christ and then as someone who ministers.

During the service, held in St Mary's Church, Stoke Bishop, 50 Trinity students came forward with their families for prayer as they prepared to leave college. Of these, 32 will be ordained in the Anglican Church. Others will go into pioneer ministries, will teach theology overseas, or will continue postgraduate research. Awards were given to students for their contributions to Christian ministry and to college life as well as for academic achievements.

Professor Gavin D'Costa, Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Bristol, came on behalf of the university to give awards to Trinity's New Testament tutors. Revd Dr John Nolland (former Vice-Principal and now Academic Dean) was given the title of Visiting Professor in acknowledgement of his many years' service in teaching, administration, research and writing. Revd Dr David Wenham (Vice-Principal) was given the title of Research Fellow.

After the service the whole college community, along with family and visitors, enjoyed an excellent lunch provided by Henry Bromberg, our Catering Manager, and his team. Earlier in the week we celebrated the end of the academic year with a ‘Global Village' party and barbecue.