John Stapylton Habgood, Baron Habgood, (23 June 1927 – 6 March 2019) was a British

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

bishop, academic, and

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. He was

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from 1973 to 1983, and

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers the ...

from 18 November 1983 to 1995. In 1995, he was made a life peer and so continued to serve in the

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after stepping down as archbishop. He took a leave of absence in later life, and in 2011 was one of the first peers to explicitly retire from the Lords.

Personal life

Habgood was born in

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, Buckinghamshire, on 23 June 1927, the son of Dr Arthur Henry Habgood and his wife Vera. He was educated at Eton,

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and Ripon College Cuddesdon. A

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Demonstrator in

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from 1950, he became a

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in 1952. Also in 1952, he was awarded a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

(PhD) degree for his thesis titled "

Hyperalgesia Hyperalgesia ( or ; ''hyper'' from Greek ὑπέρ (''huper'') 'over' + ''-algesia'' from Greek ἄλγος (algos) 'pain') is an abnormally increased sensitivity to pain, which may be caused by damage to nociceptors or peripheral nerves and ...

: an electro-physiological approach". In 1961 Habgood married Rosalie Mary Anne Boston (died 2016); he had two daughters and two sons, including Francis Habgood, formerly Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police. Habgood had

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...

in his later years, and died at a care home in

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on 6 March 2019, at the age of 91.

Early ministry

Habgood was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

as a

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian denominations, such as the Cathol ...

in 1954 and as a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

in 1955. From 1954 to 1956, he was a

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

at St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, London. From 1956 to 1962 he was Vice-Principal of Westcott House theological college in Cambridge. From 1962 to 1967 he was Rector of St John's Church, Jedburgh. In 1967 he became Principal of Queen's College, Edgbaston, a theological college, until his appointment to the episcopate. He was consecrated a bishop and appointed as

in 1973. He was passed over by

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for appointment as

Bishop of London The bishop of London is the Ordinary (church officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. By custom the Bishop is also Dean of the Chapel Royal since 1723. The diocese covers of 17 boroughs o ...

in 1981.

Archbishop of York

Habgood was elevated to

on 18 November 1983. The other name put forward for the Prime Minister's consideration was that of former England cricketer, David Sheppard, by then Bishop of Liverpool. Sheppard's socialist views – he later sat in the Lords as a Labour Peer – did not commend him to Thatcher. As an archbishop, Habgood was made a Privy Counsellor in 1983. As Archbishop of York, Habgood was seen as a leader in keeping more conservative Anglicans within the church during growing divisions over the issue of women's ordination to the priesthood. He supported the

ordination of women The ordination of women to Minister of religion, ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination ...

to the priesthood, arguing that God is neither male nor female. He also supported accommodating those who did not, and so introduced provincial episcopal visitors to provide pastoral care and oversight to laity, clergy, and parishes who could not accept women priests. Habgood retired as Archbishop of York in August 1995.

Canterbury

When Robert Runcie announced his retirement as

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

in 1990, Habgood was regarded as one of the favourites to succeed him. The religious journalist Clifford Longley described him as "the outstanding churchman of his generation", although noting that Habgood had described himself as too old. As preparations for the selection of the new archbishop began, Habgood gave a television interview stating that he was interested in being considered as "if I believed that this is what the church really wanted and if I believed that this is what God really wanted I would be under a strong obligation to say yes." At the same time it was reported that Habgood was not popular among those close to the Prime Minister,

, who would make the actual recommendation to the Queen. Habgood had also attracted criticism inside and outside the Church for his behaviour during the 1987 Crockford's Clerical Directory preface controversy. At the beginning of May a report in the '' Sunday Correspondent'' stated that four candidates were under active consideration: Habgood, David Sheppard ( Bishop of Liverpool), Colin James (

Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Winchester is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Winchester in the Church of England. The bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The Bishop of Winchester has always held ''ex officio'' the offic ...

) and John Waine ( Bishop of Chelmsford). Habgood declined to take up the automatic place he could have had on the Crown Appointments Commission, which would select the two names to be given to the Prime Minister. He was endorsed in a leader in ''

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'' on 10 July 1990. On 25 July it was announced that the next Archbishop of Canterbury would be George Carey, the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Habgood described him as "a good choice", adding that "there is a little human bit in anybody that likes the top job, but that is a very small part in my feelings. In my heart of hearts I didn't really want the job. If it had come five years ago I might have thought differently but you slow up and it is an enormously tiring job."

House of Lords

From his appointment as

in 1973 to his retirement as

in 1995, Habgood sat in the

as a Lord Spiritual. This was due to the senior rankings of the two bishoprics in the Church of England, which each granted an automatic seat in the Lords. He voted against Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 which banned local authorities from "promoting homosexuality" and state schools from teaching the "acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship": it was later repealed in 2000 in Scotland and in 2003 in the rest of the UK. Habgood was created a

as Baron Habgood, of Calverton in the County of

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on 8 September 1995, allowing him to continue to sit in the House of Lords as a

Lord Temporal The Lords Temporal are secular members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament. These can be either life peers or hereditary peers, although the hereditary right to sit in the House of Lords was abolished for all but ni ...

. He sat as a crossbencher, rather than join a political party. Later in his life he ceased attending the Lords and took leave of absence; on 3 October 2011 he became one of the first two peers to formally and permanently retire from membership under a newly instituted procedure that was created before permanent retirement achieved full legal recognition under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.

Religion and science

Habgood was a member and past president of The Science and Religion Forum. He wrote in this area, e.g., his book ''Truths in Tension: New Perspectives on Religion and Science'' (1965). Another example of his work in this area is "Faith, Science and the Future: the Conference Sermon", which was given at the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodo ...

' conference on ''Faith, Science and the Future'' held on the MIT campus (12–24 July 1979). In 2000, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on ''The Concept of Nature'' at the

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. An early 21st-century example is his review of Ronald L. Numbers's book ''The Creationists'', which Habgood titled "The creation of Creationism: Today's brand of Protestant extremism should worry theologians as well as scientists".

Books

*''Religion and Science'' (1964; 1965 U.S. publication retitled to ''Truths in Tension: New Perspectives on Religion and Science'') : A Cavendish Professor of Physics and

Nobel Laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

, Nevill Mott, has cited this book:

"I am impressed too by the point of view of the present Archbishop of York (John Habgood, Science and Religion, ondon: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964, that to understand the Bible we must try to enter into the belief patterns of the period".

*''A Working Faith'' (1980) *''Church and Nation in a Secular Age'' (1983) *''Confessions of a Conservative Liberal'' (1988) *''Making Sense'' (1993) *''Faith and Uncertainty'' (1997) *''Being a Person'' (1998) *''Varieties of Unbelief'' (2000) *''The Concept of Nature'' (2002)

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

web site accessed 17:08 GMT Friday 13 July 2011

Arms

References

External links

Biography – John Habgood
on the Gifford Lectures site. 2000–2001 lectures are online.
John Habgood – God debates
at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

website
Contributions in the House of Lords"The Untidiness of Integration: John Stapylton Habgood"
. Kevin Seybold, Volume 57 Number 2. June 2005. '' PSCF'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Habgood, John 1927 births 2019 deaths 20th-century Anglican archbishops Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Alumni of Ripon College Cuddesdon Archbishops of York Bishops of Durham Crossbench life peers Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in England Fellows of King's College, Cambridge Life peers created by Elizabeth II Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Ordained peers Peers retired from the House of Lords People educated at Eton College People from Milton Keynes Principals of Queen's College, Birmingham Staff of Westcott House, Cambridge