Graham Kings

Graham Kings (born 10 October 1953) is an English Church of England bishop, theologian and poet. In retirement in Cambridge, having served as Bishop of Sherborne and then Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion, he is an Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely and Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, which he founded in 1996. His latest books are: Nourishing Connections (Canterbury Press, 2020), Nourishing Mission: Theological Settings (Brill, 2022), Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward (Ekklesia, 2022), edited with Ian Randall.

Kings was born in Barkingside, Essex, England, on the eastern outskirts of London. He is one of two children. He was educated at Chigwell County Primary School (1958–65); Buckhurst Hill County High School, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Hertford College, Oxford (1973–77, BA/MA, Law, one year, Theology, 3 years); Ridley Hall, Cambridge (1978–80 Ordination training); Selwyn College, Cambridge, (1979–80, DipTh in New Testament post graduate studies); and Utrecht University (1998–2002 PhD by extension). He was an Honorary Fellow of Durham University (2015–18).

Between school and Oxford, Kings was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards on a short service limited commission (February to September 1973) and served as a tank troop leader in Munster, West Germany. Between Oxford and Cambridge, his first year of marriage, he was a caretaker at All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London (1977–78). Kings was ordained deacon at Michaelmas 1980 (28 September), by Hewlett Thompson, Bishop of Willesden, at St Mary's, Ealing, and ordained a priest at Michaelmas 1981 (27 September), by Graham Leonard, Bishop of London, at St Paul's Cathedral. He served as a curate in St Mark's Harlesden (1980–84), founding an open youth club there. He then spent seven years as a Church Mission Society mission partner as Director of Studies, and then as Vice-Principal, at St Andrew's College, Kabare, Kenya, working with Bishop David Gitari, Bishop of Mount Kenya East and later Bishop of Kirinyaga, and supervising the building of a new Library, Chapel and Archive Centre. He was appointed an Honorary Canon of St Andrew's Cathedral in Kerugoya, Kenya, in October 1991, at his farewell graduation ceremony, and the Kings family returned to Britain in November 1991.

In January 1992 Kings became the first Lecturer in Mission Studies at the Cambridge Theological Federation a new post supported by the Henry Martyn Trust. His study was at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Kwame Bediako, a Ghanaian theologian, preached at his commissioning service at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge on 20 January.

In July 1995, Kings moved to Westminster College, Cambridge, the library from the Henry Martyn Hall, next to Holy Trinity Cambridge, and his study from Ridley Hall. He served as the founding Director of the Henry Martyn Library, for the study of mission and world Christianity, at Westminster College, which was formally opened by Kenneth Cragg on 22 January 1996. This became the Henry Martyn Centre for the study of mission and world Christianity, and an Associate Member of the Cambridge Theological Federation, in 1998. Kings initiated the move of the SPCK archives and library from Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, to the Cambridge University Library, which was also completed in 1998. The centre was renamed the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide in 2014.

From 1995, Kings became an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge and its representative on the board of the Centre for African Studies, University of Cambridge. He attracted a six-year international, inter-university project to the Faculty of Divinity, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, USA, which was directed by Brian Stanley (1996–2002), the North Atlantic Missiology Project (later renamed the Currents in World Christianity project), and was located at the Henry Martyn Centre. The project eventually published 24 Eerdmans books in the ‘Studies in the History of Christian Missions’ series. He also attracted the Christianity in Asia project to the Faculty of Divinity, directed by Archie Lee, which published Christian Theology in Asia (CUP, 2008), edited by Sebastian C H Kim.

During this period in Cambridge, Kings studied at Utrecht University for a PhD in theology, supervised by Jan Jongeneel, in Utrecht, and by Daniel W. Hardy and Brian Stanley, in Cambridge. He was awarded the PhD in March 2002 and it was published as Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker (Boekencentrum, 2002) and was republished by ISPCK in India in 2017, with a foreword by Jayakiran Sebastian.

On 28 September 2000, Kings was inducted as vicar of St Mary's Islington, an historic Evangelical church in the Diocese of London, and served for 9 years. He arranged the renovation of the church Neighbourhood Centre and the crypt of the church, putting in a lift through the Georgian vault, 2008–09, to provide access for all, and founded the St Mary Islington Community Partnership, since renamed Mary's.