Kenneth Escott Kirk
(1886?1954), also known as
K. E. Kirk
, was an English
Anglican
bishop. He was the
Bishop of Oxford
in the
Church of England
from 1937 to 1954. He was also an influential moral theologian, serving for five years as
Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology
at Oxford.
Early life and education
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Kirk was born in
Sheffield
on 21 February 1886 and was the son of
Frank Herbert Kirk
who, in turn, was the son of John Kirk (died 1875), a Methodist minister. He was educated at
Sheffield Royal Grammar School
and
St John's College, Oxford
,
[1]
obtaining a double first in classics. He was accepted for graduate study at
Keble College
, but moved to London instead to work with the
Student Christian Movement
(SCM). The group was beginning a ministry to the large numbers of Indian students that were coming to England to study. During his time in
London
he also opened a residential hall for students of
University College, London
known as Ealing Hall, served as an assistant to the Department of Philosophy there and held a number of executive positions with SCM. He began the process to become ordained as an
Anglican
priest and was ordained a deacon on 21 December 1912 and moved to a church near Sheffield to begin a curacy, intending to go back to Keble College to finish his graduate study. When
World War I
broke out, however, that proved impossible. Instead, he spent 1915?1919 with the
British Army
as a chaplain in
France
and
Flanders
.
Kirk was able to return to
Oxford
in 1919, as a Prize Fellow at
Magdalen College
and tutor at
Keble College
. He began working on his first book of moral theology,
Some Principles of Moral Theology
, published in 1920. He adopted the method of casuistry, where general ethical principles are applied to the practical situations in which moral decisions are made. He revived the study of Christian ethics using
casuistry
, drawing on the work of Caroline divine
Jeremy Taylor
(1613?1667). In 1922 he was appointed Fellow and Chaplain of Trinity College and awarded a Bachelor of Divinity degree followed by a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1926. In 1927 he was named Reader in Moral Theology and in 1933 was made the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. His scholarly reputation rests on the books of moral theology that he wrote during the 1920s and 1930s, especially
Conscience and Its Problems
and
The Vision of God: The Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum
. In many ways he revived the study of
moral theology
in the Church of England and is considered one of the leading moral theologians of the 20th century.
Bishop of Oxford
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Kirk was consecrated a bishop on
St Andrew's Day
1937 (30 November), by
Cosmo Lang
,
Archbishop of Canterbury
, at
St Paul's Cathedral
;
[2]
he was enthroned as Bishop of Oxford at Christ Church Cathedral on 9 December 1937. He began his episcopacy by re-organizing the large, rural diocese and moving the episcopal offices to the city of Oxford. Kirk issued a temporary seal as the function of Chancellor of the Garter was dissociated from the See of Oxford in the wake of the
Abdication Crisis
. In piety as well as scholarship, Kirk followed in the tradition of the
Oxford Movement
, emphasizing the sacramental nature of the Catholic Church and
apostolic succession
. As a result, at the time of the independence of the Anglican Church in India from the
Church of England
, Kirk was a leader of the Anglo-Catholic party at
Lambeth
in 1948 that warned the Church from compromising its catholicity by adopting intercommunion too quickly, when not all of the clergy of the
United Church of South India
would have received episcopal ordination. He worked with the Archbishops of Canterbury,
William Temple
and his successor
Geoffrey Fisher
, and with
George Bell
,
Bishop of Chichester
, however, in devising a compromise solution, and in May, 1950 a resolution was passed in the English Convocation allowing for limited intercommunion. Kirk died on 8 June 1954, before the resolution was passed in July, 1955, formally inaugurating the communion of the two churches.
The title of his last published work,
Beauty and Bands
, is that of a sermon he gave at the episcopal consecration of
Glyn Simon
in Brecon Cathedral.
Personal life
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In 1921 Kirk married Beatrice Caynton Yonge Radcliffe; they had three daughters and two sons. Their elder son was Sir
Peter Michael Kirk
(1928?1977), a Conservative politician. Beatrice died in 1934. One of their daughters, Patricia, married
Eric Waldram Kemp
, Chaplain of
Exeter College, Oxford
and later
Bishop of Chichester
, and author of
The Life and Letters of Kenneth Escott Kirk, Bishop of Oxford, 1937?1954
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959).
Major works
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Other works
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- The Church in the Furnace
(contributor) (1917)
- Essays Catholic and Critical
(contributor) (1926)
- Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation
(contributor) (1928)
- Marriage and Divorce
(1933)
- The Fourth River
(1935)
- The Study of Theology
(editor and contributor) (1939)
- The Apostolic Ministry
(editor and contributor) (1946)
- The Church Dedications of the Oxford Diocese
(1946)
- Beauty and Bands
(collection of articles and sermons) (1955)
References
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