God in the Life of Christopher Lewis

For a man who says he only saw the point of education as he was leaving school, Christopher Lewis has come a long way. As new dean of Christ Church, he is responsible for the College and the Cathedral at a time of great change for both institutions. From school he joined the Navy, where he came to a conscious, definite, Christian faith. He describes himself as a ‘comprehensive Anglican’, to whom working with the poor and underprivileged is an essential part of his creed. He is married to Rhona with three children aged 30, 24 and 17.

I was only an occasional churchgoer as a child; my family wasn’t particularly religious. I went away to school and was confirmed, much a case of being part of the whole school process. It wasn’t until later that I began to grapple with things, when I was 17 or 18 and had joined the Navy. I enjoyed the Navy enormously. I was in it for five years and during that time I changed a lot or maybe life changed me. It was there that I really began to think things out and came to a much more conscious, definite Christian faith. I ended up as the navigator of a mine-sweeper doing patrol work in the Far East during the Malaysia/ Indonesia confrontation. There was no crisis moment; it was more a question of meeting a far greater range of people, being in different situations, trying to piece it all together and to have an insight into what gives meaning to the whole. It was partly an intellectual struggle and also an emotional one.

I guess the Holy Spirit was guiding me to see things in a particular way. I suppose I began to understand that one needs to wrestle with the world and that seeking the truth is very hard but also very exciting. It was the discovery that the most creative and true and comprehensive way of approaching people, life and oneself is in Christ. Christianity is odd, for it is something that may be going on around you and which you can ‘do’ without ever making it your own. That is what happened to me for I would have called myself a Christian in a general, social sense but I found I had to make it consciously my own.

Ordination and academia

While in the Navy I felt I should see whether ordination was the right route. I stayed in for a time as I was enjoying myself and then came out of the Navy with a view to ordination but got diverted into being a student. I did three years at Bristol University then a year in the US, before getting married. I had met Rhona towards the end of the time at Bristol. We were engaged when I went to the States and were married in Alaska at the end of that year. We could have come back to England and had a normal kind of wedding with bridesmaids and all that, but I had the opportunity
of going to Alaska to work, through some contacts in Boston. And in the end what we thought we’d do is get married there - with family permission (it wasn’t exactly an elopement!) - then do six weeks working for the Church near the Arctic circle before coming back for a wedding reception. We started our married life in Cambridge where I went to do research. So I ended up having come out of the navy at 22, doing seven years as a student, which was rather longer than I’d anticipated.

Comprehensively Anglican

All the time my Christian faith and understanding of the Church were developing. I started off with a fairly evangelical faith which I haven’t lost, but I wouldn’t place myself in any particular slot or party in the Church. I have always been comprehensively Anglican. I was ordained at the age of 29. We moved to County Durham where I was a curate for two and a half years. Then we came to Oxfordshire where I taught in Cuddesdon for seven years. It is good to teach, as it can be very testing; your views have to stand up in a critical environment. For three years I also looked after the parish of Aston Rowant with Crowell near Chinnor alongside the teaching. That was an experience for modern life in the church as I had a full-time job elsewhere and had to do much of the work of the parish with a team of splendid people on the spot.

Then I went to be vicar of Spalding in Lincolnshire. I really appreciate the market town comprehensive kind of Anglicanism and being a vicar in that context. Spalding has a town centre church and there were lots of things going on. It was fairly normal Anglican religion if there is such a thing now.

Cathedral life

Since then I’ve been in Cathedrals. We went to Canterbury where I was the Canon Librarian before going to St Albans as Dean. Rhona is a Roman Catholic and I’m very ecumenically committed. I am also involved with issues of homelessness and Christian attitudes to that; I chaired a group which got a direct access hostel going in Canterbury. It is very important to my faith that it should have practical outworkings of that kind, particularly in relation to people who are disadvantaged. Cathedrals do have a crucial role in this day and age because it is pretty secular in many ways, yet people are enquiring about spiritual matters, if not exclusively about Christianity. One of the great values of Cathedrals is that they are easily accessible. They can cater for a wide number of people, they can have more than one style of worship going on, and you can relate to people who are not necessarily consciously or keenly Christian. People can light candles or put up prayers or pray for justice and peace plus there are all the ancillary things that go on like music and festivals. There is a Christian core to it but round that core all sorts of different things circulate and I like that model because I think it connects people to things going on in the world, and connects them (us) to the Christian prayer and worship going on at the centre.

Accessible to all

Geographically, the Cathedral here isn’t ideal because it is rather hidden. I have some sympathy with the Cathedral’s critics and we have a lot of work to do with our relationship with the diocese, but relationships are a two-way thing and I hope people will put effort into working with the cathedral and helping it as well. And it is a lovely Cathedral with wonderful music and marvellous facilities; we just have to make sure it is all used creatively as the Cathedral for the Diocese.

The gay debate

I’m not a great participant in the gay debate because I don’t think the issue is of importance. I’m not keen on the views of those who are very pro or very anti. There have been many wonderful clergy and Christian lay people who have been gay all through time and they have been generalists, not single issue fanatics. I take a fairly relaxed attitude to their sexual orientation so long as it does not wreck their ministry – but you can say
the same about heterosexuals. In the Bible and in the Christian tradition it is a third order issue. What does it matter? Maybe other people feel this too. At a time when much of the world knows nothing of Jesus Christ, when there are lots of homeless people, a lot of third world debt, why spend ink and energy on this subject? I’m for giving it all a much lower rating, but I’m in a minority. I have the passionate view that it is not a top subject!

Bell, book and plough

It’s early days here but I certainly don’t want to sit in this room all the time. I have a Benedictine line on balance: their ‘bell, book and plough’, except of course in practice they often copped out of the plough and employed others to do it. I like combining my spirituality with physical work and some study. We are going to plough literally here because we are to have a vegetable garden and we keep chickens. We have some guinea fowl as well – guinea fowl wandering round Tom Quad has been mentioned. Without something like that one goes to seed!