Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 September 2011 09:15:12
As reported in various places Revd. Prof Charles Kingsley Barrett passed away last week. The Darlington District Methodist Church website contains this obituary which is a touching tribute. Others who have commented on his passing include Judy Redman whose post refers to the debt that contemporary scholars owe him. I knew him not as an academic guide, rather he was a retired minister and academic who I saw in church week on week. He was an elderly widower of great dignity and obvious faith whose eyes gentley smiled when sharing the peace.
He was still taking occassional preaching appointments right up until the end, planning and preaching I understand from the extensive body of knowledge held within his head, when eyesight and hearing began to fail him. I was priviledged to hear him a couple of years ago and I wrote this post on the experience which I described as like being at Wembley. This was my description of hearing him preach:
"As Third Party sat next to me in church listening to an eminent New Testament scholar, now aged over 90, give the sermon for the church anniversary I was glad she was there. This wonderful servant of God was ordained, we heard, over half a century before she was born but he was still able to hold an audience spellbound, (on a couple of occassions I realised I had nearly fallen off my chair as I leant forward). There was something about the pronounciation in a voice cultivated between the wars and the structuring of the sentences which took you back in time. It was possible to imagine oneself v. clearly as an undergraduate hearing the wise teachings of a revered professor for the first time after going up to uni. There was story telling, moral insight but also clear explanation regarding the structure of New Testament life – (things I’d only partially ever known before) – and how it was to be applied today. Add in references to the classics and a lamenting of the current generations lack of knowledge of Latin, (we learnt about the meaning of the word Peculiar and Henry V), and some personal sentimentality about his Greek New Testament and you had what Third Party was heard to later remark “a v.cool old guy” giving us an experience to savour. An experience we all understood we would be amongst some of the last to recieve."
I know that CK Barrett will have recieved a "well done good and faithful servant" because he was indeed that. Rest in peace Kingsley we will miss seeing you at church.