Canon Colin Craston
Wise churchman whose writings encouraged his fellow Evangelicals to accept women priests
CANON COLIN CRASTON, who has died aged 95, was one of the most highly regarded Anglican clergymen of his generation. Apart from a three-year curacy in Durham, his entire full-time ministry, extending over a further 39 years, was spent in two adjoining parishes in Bolton. Besides this he played a significant part in the wider life of the Church both nationally and internationally. He belonged firmly to the Evangelical tradition but represented this long before its present, more noisy, manifestations.
As vice-chairman then chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council from 1986 to 1996 he occupied a pivotal role at a time when divisive tensions were rising in the Church over issues related to sexuality, women’s ministry and biblical interpretation.
The 100-strong ACC consists of representative bishops, priests and laity from every province of the Anglican Communion. Its bi-annual meetings and permanent secretariat are concerned with the sharing of information, exchange of opinion, co-ordination of action and, when appropriate, the formulation of policy.
Its chairmanship called for special sensitivity and unusual skill in holding together a Council whose membership consisted of as diverse a company of individual Christians as might ever be imagined. That Craston achieved this, enjoying the complete confidence and admiration of all involved, was a tribute to his gifts and depth of faith.
His book Anglicanism and the
Universal Church (1990) and his
contribution to Authority in the
Anglican Communion (1997) expressed his firm conviction that disagreement is not an acceptable reason for division.
Within the Church of England, his positive contribution to the decisionmaking that led to the acceptance of women priests, then bishops, was also important. Among the Evangelical fraternity there was a substantial element convinced that the ordination of women was contrary to the teaching of the Bible. For many of these Craston’s book Biblical Headship and the Ordination of Women (1986) led to a change of understanding.
Richard Colin Craston was born in Preston on December 31 1922. By the time he left grammar school, war was under way, and he joined the Navy for training as a wireless telegraphist.
In 1941 he was serving in the destroyer Eclipse escorting convoys to Russia, often in appalling Arctic weather and under frequent attack from German aircraft and U-boats. Long afterwards (in 2014) he received a medal of appreciation from the Russian Federation and for some years was chairman of an association of ex-rn convoy survivors.
That Craston was among them owed everything to the fact that in 1943 he left the ship, having been recommended for a commission. Seven months later Eclipse, now with the Mediterranean Fleet, was sunk off Greece with the loss of most of its crew, including the entire wireless telegraphy team. For the remainder of his long life Craston was conscious of his fortunate escape. The rest of the war was spent in the escort carrier Shah in the East Indies Fleet.
On demobilisation in 1946 Craston went to the Evangelical theological college Tyndale Hall, Bristol, to prepare for Holy Orders, and he took a Bristol University degree in Theology followed by a London BD.
He became a curate in 1951 at St Nicholas Church in the centre of Durham, an outpost of the Evangelical tradition in the North, engaged in a special ministry to students.
Three years later he returned to his native Lancashire as vicar of St Paul’s Church, Bolton, and there he stayed until his retirement in 1993. During these 39 years he also accepted responsibility for the neighbouring Emmanuel Church, became Team Rector and served as Area Dean of Bolton from 1972 to 1992.
This proved to be a remarkable ministry at the heart of a onceprosperous cotton town now undergoing radical social change, with its associated problems.
Craston maintained his churches as centres of hope, immersed himself in civic life and was available for the pastoral care of several generations of his many parishioners. He became an Honorary Canon of Manchester Cathedral in 1968, and served on several diocesan committees.
When the Church of England’s General Synod was formed in 1970, Craston was among the first to be elected to it as a diocesan representative. He was re-elected four times over the next 25 years, served on the Synod’s standing and business committees, as well as on the Crown Nominations Commission responsible for the choice of diocesan bishops.
During this time, Evangelical influence in the Church increased considerably and Craston became an elder statesman, whose book Evangelical and Evolving – the Gospel in a Changing World (2006) combined wisdom and openness to new insights.
He was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in 1985, awarded a Lambeth DD in 2002 and became the first member of a newly created Order of William Temple in 2011.
His first wife Ruth died in 1992 and he then married, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, the Rev Brenda Fullalove, who survives him with a son and daughter of his first marriage.
Canon Colin Craston, born December 31 1922, died January 25 2018