R. I. P. COLIN SLEE

Sermon by the Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, at the funeral of Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark Cathedral.

I didn't know Colin Slee. Until his recent death, I didn't know anything about Dean Slee, but after reading Jeffrey John's lovely sermon at his funeral service, I wish I'd known him or, at least, known a bit more about him.

One of the last things Colin said before he died was, ‘I am surprisingly un-scared’. It could have been the motto of his whole life. Colin was always surprisingly un-scared. Unlike the rest of us, he never did let fear or self-consciousness or embarrassment to stop him reaching out to the most unlikely and needy people, or doing and saying what he thought was right and true. All the frightened, careful people said Colin was risky, indiscreet, unreliable – ‘the most dangerous man in the Church of England’ said one, to Colin’s deep delight. But he was not dangerous or indiscreet or unreliable - certainly not in anything that mattered. He was just surprisingly un-scared.

If you ask why he was so un-scared, I think the answer is as straightforward as he was. He really did believe. He really trusted in a good and loving God as Jesus came to make Him known to us; and that confidence set him free to be the astonishingly life-giving, brave, generous and joyous person that he was.
....

The papers and his detractors always portrayed Colin as an arch-Liberal, as if he were the leader of a faction obsessed with a secular agenda. It was never true, and it misses the whole point. For Colin it began and ended with God. The truth is that he was a traditional Catholic Anglican, thoroughly disciplined and orthodox in his faith, a man of profound prayer and penitence. His idea of inclusiveness was not that ‘anything goes’, but that we are all equally in need of healing, and therefore the Church must equally be a home for all. Colin welcomed people because Jesus did. (My emphasis)

Amen, and amen, and amen!

I'm baffled that, all too often, it seems difficult for certain of my brother and sister Christians to understand that one can be "thoroughly disciplined and orthodox" in one's faith and still welcome everyone because Jesus did. How is it arch-liberal or secular to look to Jesus in the Gospels as the model for how we are to "do unto others"?

From the website of Southwark Cathedral.

Photo from the Guardian.