John Robinson | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Woolwich | |
 Robinson in 1963 | |
| Church | Church of England |
| Diocese | Southwark |
| In office | 1959 to 1969 |
| Predecessor | Robert Stannard |
| Successor | David Sheppard |
| Other post | Dean of Chapel ofTrinity College, Cambridge (1969–1983) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination |
|
| Consecration | 1959 by Geoffrey Fisher |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Arthur Thomas Robinson (1919-05-16)16 May 1919 Canterbury, Kent, England |
| Died | 5 December 1983(1983-12-05) (aged 64) Arncliffe, North Yorkshire, England |
| Denomination | Anglicanism |
| Profession | Clergyman and scholar |
| Alma mater | Westcott House, Cambridge |
John Arthur Thomas Robinson (16 May 1919 – 5 December 1983) was an EnglishNew Testament scholar, author and theAnglicanBishop of Woolwich.[1] He was alecturer atTrinity College, Cambridge, and later Dean of Chapel at Trinity College,[2] "a relatively minor position, usually filled by a recent theological graduate",[3] until his death in 1983 from cancer.[4] Robinson was considered a major force in New Testament studies and in shapingliberal Christian theology. Along with theHarvard theologianHarvey Cox, he spearheaded the field ofsecular theology and, likeWilliam Barclay, was a believer inuniversal salvation.[5]
Robinson was born on 16 May 1919 in the precincts ofCanterbury Cathedral, England, where his late father had been acanon. He was educated atMarlborough College, then an all-boys'public school inMarlborough, Wiltshire. He studied atJesus College, Cambridge, andTrinity College, Cambridge, and then trained forordination atWestcott House.[6]
Robinson wasordained in theChurch of England as adeacon in 1945 and as apriest in 1946.[7] From 1945 to 1948, he served hiscuracy atSt Matthew's Church, Moorfields in theDiocese of Bristol.[6] The vicar at the time wasMervyn Stockwood.
In 1948, Robinson became chaplain ofWells Theological College, where he wrote his first book,In the End, God. In 1951, he was appointedFellow andDean ofClare College, Cambridge and a lecturer indivinity atCambridge University.[8]
Following an invitation from Stockwood, by then theBishop of Southwark, Robinson became the Bishop of Woolwich in 1959.[9] The appointment of Robinson as asuffragan bishop was in Stockwood's gift, and whilst theArchbishop of Canterbury (at that pointGeoffrey Fisher) questioned the appointment on the grounds that he believed Robinson at that point would be doing more valuable work as a theologian, he accepted that once he had given advice he had "done all that it was proper for him to do" and proceeded to consecrate Robinson to the episcopate. In 1960 Robinson served as a witness for the defence in theobscenity trial ofPenguin Books for the publication ofD. H. Lawrence'sLady Chatterley's Lover. Following a ten-year period at Woolwich, Robinson returned to Cambridge in 1969 as Fellow and Dean of Chapel atTrinity College, where he lectured and continued to write.
Robinson was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1983[10] and died on 5 December of that year inArncliffe, North Yorkshire.[11]
ModernUniversalist writer Brian Hebblethwaite[12] cites Robinson'sIn the End, God: A Study of the Christian Doctrine of the Last Things[13] as arguing for theuniversal reconciliation of allimmortal souls. Ken R. Vincent, inThe Golden Thread[14] states: "Robinson notes that Christ, inOrigen's old words, remains on the Cross so long as one sinner remains in [H]ell. This is not speculation: it is a statement grounded in the very necessity of God's nature." George Hunsinger, author ofDisruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth[15] writes that "[i]f one is looking for an uninhibited proponent of universal salvation, Robinson leaves nothing to be desired."
In this book, an analysis of the early history of the doctrine of theparousia, Robinson states: "That the heart of the Christian hope was now, once more to 'wait for God's son from heaven', for a second and final coming which would complete and crown the first, is a belief for which we have found no firm foundation in the words of Jesus himself."[16] Robinson further argued that there was a tendency in the early church to alter the meaning of sayings of Jesus that originally referred to his death and ascension into heaven, to refer to an event in the future that had not yet happened.[a]
Robinson wrote several well-received books. The most popular wasHonest to God published in 1963.[17][18] According toExploration into God in (1967), he felt its chief contribution was its attempt tosynthesize the work of theologiansPaul Tillich andDietrich Bonhoeffer, both of them well known in theological circles, but whose views were largely unknown to the people in the pews. The book proved contentious because it called on Christians to view God as the "Ground of Being" rather than as a supernatural being "out there". The modifications of the Divine image posited by Robinson have some aspects in common with the psychological deconstruction of God-ideas put forward by his fellow Cambridge theologianHarry Williams in his contribution to the symposium "Soundings" edited byAlec Vidler and published in 1962.[19] When that book was being produced, Robinson was not asked to contribute, because he was then thought to be too conservative a New Testament scholar.[20] This view has never quite dissipated, for in his later books, Robinson would champion early dates and apostolic authorship for the gospels, largely without success.
The media furore concerningHonest to God – one which was to portray him as anything but conservative in the public mind[21] – led to a criticism of Robinson in the Church Assembly (the precursor of theGeneral Synod of the Church of England) by the Archbishop of CanterburyMichael Ramsey, and there were calls from many quarters for Robinson to resign or be deposed. Whilst Ramsey took Robinson to task for his views, Ramsey's pamphlet "Image Old and New" rushed out as a response, did not entirely dismiss what had been said.[22] Indeed, Ramsey would later admit in a letter toMervyn Stockwood that he regretted the way in which he had handled the matter.[23] The book, which has remained almost consistently in print, proposes abandoning the notion of God "out there", existing somewhere as a "cosmic supremo", just as we have abandoned already the idea of God "up there", the notion of "the old man up in the sky". In its place, he offered a reinterpretation of God as "Love".[24] After endorsing Paul Tillich's assertion that God is the "ground of all being", Robinson wrote: "For it is in [Jesus] making himself nothing, in his utter self-surrender to others in love, that he discloses and lays bare the ground of man's being as Love[25] ... For assertions about God are in the last analysis assertions about Love".[26] While some of its ideas have been taken up by moreliberal circles of Christian thought, proponents of the traditional interpretation of Christianity, bothCatholic andProtestant, reject Robinson's thesis as an unnecessary capitulation to Modernism.[27]
To what extent this is in fact the case depends very much on the frame of reference of the reader. However, the work of Robinson inHonest to God provided a departure point which would be followed up in the writings of the radical theologiansDon Cupitt andJohn Shelby Spong and in the 1977 symposiumThe Myth of God Incarnate, edited byJohn Hick. Whether Robinson would have gone as far as Cupitt did in declaring the idea of God to be an entirely human creation is something which can only be conjectured. However, he said as he was dying that he "never doubted the essential truth of Christianity".[28] Robinson seemed to rapidly become a person upon whom religious people projected their own ideas of what he was like, and the bookThe Honest to God Debate, edited by Robinson and by David L Edwards, also published in 1963, contains a mixture of articles which either praise Robinson for his approach or accuse him ofatheism.[29]
Although Robinson was considered aliberal theologian, he challenged the work of like-minded colleagues in the field ofexegetical criticism. Specifically, Robinson examined the reliability of theNew Testament as he believed that it had been the subject of very little original research during the 20th century. He also wrote that past scholarship was based on a "tyranny of unexamined assumptions" and an "almost wilful blindness".[30]
Robinson concluded that much of the New Testament was written before AD 64, partly basing his judgement on the sparse textual evidence that the New Testament reflects knowledge ofthe destruction of theTemple in Jerusalem in AD 70. In relation to the four gospels' dates of authorship, Robinson placed Matthew as being written sometime between AD 40 and the AD 60s, Mark sometime between AD 45 and AD 60, Luke sometime during the AD 50s and the 60s and John sometime between AD 40 and AD 65 or later.[31][32] Robinson also argued that the letter of James was penned by a brother of Jesus Christ within twenty years of Jesus' death, that Paul authored all the books attributed to him, and that the "John" who wrote the fourth Gospel was the apostle John. Robinson also suggested that the results of his investigations implied a need to rewrite many theologies of the New Testament.[33][34][35]
In a letter to Robinson, the New Testament scholarC. H. Dodd wrote, "I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton[;] the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic's prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud."[36][37] Robinson's call for redating the New Testament – or, at least, the four gospels – was echoed in subsequent scholarship such asJohn Wenham's workRedating Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem and work byClaude Tresmontant,Günther Zuntz,Carsten Peter Thiede,Eta Linnemann, Harold Riley,Jean Carmignac, andBernard Orchard.[citation needed]
Bart Ehrman maintains that Robinson's early dates for the gospels, especially those for John, have not been taken up among mostliberal scholars of Biblical historicity.[38] Some conservative and traditionalist scholars, however, concur with his dating of thesynoptic gospels.[39]
InThe Priority ofJohn,[40] Robinson furthered the argument put forward inRedating the New Testament that all the books were written before 70 AD, by focusing on the book that is placed early least often. He also wanted to prove that John is independent of theSynoptics and better than them at describing the length and time period of Jesus' ministry,Palestinian geography, and the cultural milieu of the early first century there.
This work was put together posthumously by J. F. Coakley according to Robinson's basically complete but unfinished notes for his Bampton Lectures.
Robinson was also noted for his 1960court testimony against thecensorship ofLady Chatterley's Lover, claiming that it was a book which "every Christian should read."[41]
Robinson's legacy includes the work of the now lateEpiscopal bishopJohn Shelby Spong in best-selling books that include salutes by Spong to Robinson as a lifelong mentor. In a 2013 interview, Spong recalls reading Robinson's 1963 book:
I can remember reading his first book as if was yesterday. I was rather snobbish when the book came out. I actually refused to read it at first. Then, when I read it – I couldn’t stop. I read it three times! My theology was never the same. I had to wrestle with how I could take the literalism I had picked up in Sunday school and put it into these new categories.[42]
The Bishop John Robinson School inThamesmead, south-east London, which is within the area for which he was responsible as Bishop of Woolwich, is named after him.[43]
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| Preceded by | Bishop of Woolwich 1959–1969 | Succeeded by |
