William Temple (bishop)
William Temple was an influential Anglican bishop and theologian born on October 15, 1881, in Exeter, England. He was the son of Frederick Temple, who served as archbishop of Canterbury. Despite facing health challenges throughout his life, including significant vision impairment, Temple developed a diverse range of interests, including music, poetry, and literature. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained recognition as president of the Oxford Union and later worked as a lecturer in philosophy.
Temple's journey to ordination was marked by initial hesitations regarding core Christian doctrines, but he ultimately became an important figure in the Anglican Church. He was a passionate advocate for social reform and workers' rights, serving as president of the Workers Educational Association and engaging with the British Labour Party. He contributed significantly to the ecumenical movement, promoting cooperation among different Christian denominations.
His writings, such as "Mens Creatrix" and "Christus Veritas," explored the relationship between faith, reason, and contemporary social issues, establishing him as a leading voice in Anglican thought. Elevated to archbishop of Canterbury in 1942, his tenure was brief due to health issues, yet he remained a vocal critic of the Nazi regime during World War II. Temple passed away on October 26, 1944, and is remembered as a prominent theologian, philosopher, and advocate for social justice within the Anglican tradition.
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Subject Terms
William Temple (bishop)
Archbishop
- Born: October 15, 1881
- Birthplace: Exeter, Devon, England
- Died: October 26, 1944
- Place of death: Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, England
Biography
William Temple was born on October 15, 1881 in Exeter, Devon, England. He was the second son of Frederick Temple, an influential and often controversial Anglican prelate, who became archbishop of Canterbury when his son was a teenager and maintained this position until his death in 1902. Young Temple was a sickly child, plagued by poor eyesight, and by midlife he was completely blind in one eye. As a child, he loved the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the novels of Fyodor Dostoevski, indicating a rich background that extended his range of interests far beyond Christian literature.
Temple was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was the president of the Oxford Union, the university’s prestigious debating forum, where Temple exhibited not only an incisive mind but a willingness to engage the dynamic of genuine discussion. He served as a lecturer in philosophy at Queen’s College from 1904 to 1910. In 1906, he applied for ordination but was initially refused because he resisted the absolute certainty of Jesus’s virgin birth and his bodily resurrection. Temple would not be accepted into ordination until 1910, by which time he had thoroughly studied the issues and had become convinced of the fitness of both doctrines.
Apart from his theological pursuits, Temple pursued a wide range of public reform interests. An advocate of social reform and workers’ rights, Temple became president of the Workers Educational Association and was prominent in the British Labour Party. He was a tireless champion of the emerging ecumenical movement that sought to establish genuine cooperation and respect among Christian sects worldwide. In 1916, he published Mens Creatrix: An Essay, a groundbreaking metaphysical speculation on, among other issues, the role of reason in matters of faith, the definition of ethical crises, and the tenets of Christian aesthetics.
On the strength of the essay’s reception, Temple was made a canon of Westminster in 1919 and bishop of the industrial city of Manchester in 1921. While in Manchester, he negotiated a general nationwide labor strike that was called to protest England’s economic policies, which strikers argued were indifferent to the country’s poorest citizens. In 1924, Temple completed Christus Veritas, also known as Christ the Truth, a companion to his earlier work, which examined the presence of the Christ figure in a contemporary secular world plagued by economic, social, and cultural pressures. His international reputation as the principal exponent of Anglican Christianity was solidified with Nature, Man, and God: Being the Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Glasgow in the Academical Years 1932-1933 and 1933-1934, a sweeping exploration of the Christian philosophy of creation itself.
Intricate and erudite, Temple’s writings led to his 1942 elevation to archbishop of Canterbury. Although his fragile health limited his tenure to only two years, Temple was an outspoken critic of the Nazi’s treatment of Jews and used the offices of the Anglican Church to facilitate a negotiated peace when it was clear Germany had lost World War II. He died on October 26, 1944, from the debilitating effects of gout. His ashes were interred in Westminster Cathedral.
Recognized now as one of the great doctors of the post- Reformation Anglican Church, Temple was not only an articulate philosopher and acclaimed theologian but also a social activist, educational reformer, and leader of the ecumenical movement.