Michael Ball (bishop)

For other people named Michael Ball, see Michael Ball (disambiguation).

Michael Thomas Ball (born 14 February 1932) is an Anglican bishop and the co-founder of the Community of the Glorious Ascension. He was the Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997.

Ball was educated at Lancing College and Queens' College, Cambridge. He was a teacher of biology and chemistry at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire and was then head of the lower school until 1975. He was chaplain of Sussex University 1976 to 1980, suffragan Bishop of Jarrow from 1980 to 1990 and then the 13th Bishop of Truro. He was the first bishop there to ordain women.

In 1960 Ball founded a monastic community at Stratford Park in Stroud, along with his identical twin brother Peter Ball, who later became suffragan Bishop of Lewes (1977–1992) and then Bishop of Gloucester (1992–1993).

Ball is the author of Foolish Risks of God, a Lenten study course on the parables of the New Testament (Mowbray Lent Book, ISBN 0-8264-6395-9) published in 2002. In the book's introduction he writes of the parables,

"The deepest problems of the universe are hidden in their simplicity, whether it be free will and choice, reward and punishment, or justice and mercy, power and powerlessness, and in most cases Jesus has complete confidence in our ability to understand their significance for ourselves, despite what the Gospel writers and preachers ever since have tried to do with them. They are not commandments for behaviour, though they may gently persuade; neither are they black and white morsels of theology. They are signposts to God and guides to living and loving."

References

Religious titles
Preceded by Alexander Kenneth Hamilton	Bishop of Jarrow 1980–1990	Succeeded by Alan Smithson
Preceded by Peter Mumford	Bishop of Truro 1990–1997	Succeeded by William Ind