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Michael Green (theologian)

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

Edward Michael Bankes Green, known as Michael Green, is a British theologian, Anglican priest, Christian apologist and author of more than fifty Christian books. He is serving as the Canon Missioner of Holy Trinity Church in Raleigh, North Carolina through 2007. [1]

Education and career

Michael Green was born in 1930. His mother was Australian and his father was Welsh. He was converted through the ministry of E J H Nash ("Bash").[1] Educated at Clifton College. He studied at Exeter College, Oxford (Bachelor of Arts 1953, Master of Arts 1956), and subsequently at Queens' College, Cambridge (Bachelor of Arts 1957, Master of Arts 1961, Bachelor of Divinity 1966) while preparing for ordained ministry at Ridley Hall. He has been admitted to the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Archbishop of Canterbury (1996) and the University of Toronto (1992). He was ordained deacon in 1957, priest in 1958.

He served as Assistant Curate of Eastbourne Holy Trinity 1957-60, Tutor at London College of Divinity 1960-69, Principal of St John's College, Nottingham 1969-75, and Rector of St Aldate's, Oxford 1975-86. He had additionally been an Honorary Canon of Coventry Cathedral from 1970 until 1978. He then moved to Canada, where he was Professor of Evangelism at Regent College, Vancouver from 1987 until 1992. He returned to England to take up the position of Advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York for the Springboard Decade of Evangelism. In 1993 he was appointed Six Preacher of Canterbury Cathedral. Despite having officially retired in 1996, he became Senior Research Fellow and Head of Evangelism and Apologetics at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford in 1997 and lives in the village of Marston, near Oxford.

He is married to Rosemary, and they have four adult children, Sarah (who lives in Northern Ireland), Jenny, Tim, and Jonathan.

Apologetics & evangelism

Green has been a prolific writer, with much of his work written for a popular reading audience, although he has also contributed to academic studies. Many of his best known books discuss the twin topics of evangelism and apologetics.

One of Green's objectives has been to equip lay Christian believers in their grasp of the gospel message, and to then have confidence to converse with others about faith matters. These practical objectives are very clear in books such as Evangelism, Now and Then and Sharing Your Faith With Friends and Family. At a technical level Green has contributed a valuable academic study of the praxis and theory of evangelism in Evangelism in the Early Church. This work explores the development of evangelism through the New Testament texts and from the early church fathers, and is a basic text in Christian missions. He has built on those foundational studies in his advocacy of evangelism at a parish church level, both through his personal ministry and in his book Evangelism Through the Local Church.

His apologetic work has generally focussed on popular misconceptions and objections held by non-Christians. In books such as You Must Be Joking, World on the Run and Why Bother With Jesus, Green deals with attitudes of religious indifference and scepticism. He also addresses a variety of objections concerning religious hypocrisy, religious pluralism, and popular questions of doubt and unbelief. He has also examined the evidences for the life, death and resurrection of Christ in Man Alive and again in the revision of that book The Day Death Died.

Green has also explored academic challenges to faith, such as in the collection of essays he prepared as a reply to Don Cupitt's work on The Myth of God Incarnate. In that analysis Green and his colleagues addressed the problems of myth and history as propounded in modern biblical scholarship, especially concerning the relationship between the events of Jesus' ministry and teaching, and the doctrine of the Incarnation.

His recent work The Books the Church Suppressed: Fiction and Truth in The Da Vinci Code is an argument for Orthodox Christianity against Gnosticism, as it is presented in The Da Vinci Code. Green here links Gnosticism with a decline in society (pp 152-4). He also claims that Gnosticism leads to a decline in morality, so that by ordaining a homosexual bishop, the Episcopal Church of the United States has itself shown Gnostic tendencies (pp 154-161).

He has considered aspects of apologetic methodology and strategy in his co-authored work with Alister McGrath.

Aside from his apologetic writings, Green has also addressed issues of discipleship in the Christian life, ministry and leadership in the church, the doctrine of baptism, pneumatology (the Holy Spirit) and demonology. He has also written non-technical commentaries on certain books of the New Testament.

Adventure of Faith is his spiritual autobiography.

Humorous reference

Michael Green was a good-natured victim of the Hoax letter writers The Reverend Toby Forward and The Reverend David Johnson, writing under the pseudonym Francis Wagstaffe. They describe him as "the famous evangelist and mild arsonist" in letters to Euston Films, Roy Jenkins, and Hodder & Stoughton. They received a letter from Dr Green in which he admitted, "I had a fairly wild time before becoming a committed Christian: that included things like a little mild arson, but not fornication!" (p. 71) There was a serious point behind his repudiating any involvement with fornication: as Rector of St Aldate's he famously had a sofa in his study, "where scores of people knelt to entrust their lives to Christ!" (ibid.)

  • See Toby Forward and David Johnson, eds, The Spiritual Quest of Francis Wagstaffe (Leominster: Gracewing, 1994), pp. 70, 71, 72-3, 74, 98, 123, 196.

Bibliography

  • Called to Serve, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1965.
  • Man Alive, InterVarsity, Leicester, 1967.
  • Evangelism in the Early Church, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1970.
  • New Life, New Lifestyle, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1973.
  • I Believe in the Holy Spirit, William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1975.
  • You Must Be Joking: Popular Excuses for Avoiding Jesus Christ, Hodder & Stoughton, 1976.
  • (ed), The Truth of God Incarnate, Hodder & Stoughton, 1977.
  • Evangelism, now and then, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1979.
  • Why Bother With Jesus? Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1979.
  • Church and Homosexuality, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1980 ISBN 0-340-25483-1
  • The Day Death Died, InterVarsity Press, Leicester, 1982.
  • Freed to Serve, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1983.
  • The Empty Cross of Jesus, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1984.
  • World on the Run, InterVarsity Press, Leicester, 1985.
  • Second Epistle of Peter and the General Epistle of Jude, 2nd edition, InterVarsity Press, Leicester/William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1987.
  • Baptism, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1987 ISBN 0-340-41056-6
  • I Believe in Satan's Downfall, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1988 ISBN 0-340-42543-1
  • Evangelism Through the Local Church, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1989 ISBN 0-340-52916-4
  • Exposing the Prince of Darkness, Servant, Ann Arbor, 1991.
  • The Dawn of the New Age, Darton Longman & Todd, London, 1993.
  • My God, Oliver Nelson, Nashville, 1993.
  • Springboard for Faith (with Alister McGrath), Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1993.
  • New Testament Spirituality (with R. Paul Stevens), Eagle Publishing, 1994 ISBN 0-86347-113-7
  • Who Is This Jesus?, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1998? ISBN 0-340-72225-8
  • The Message of Matthew (Bible Speaks Today Series), InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 2001 ISBN 0-8308-1243-1
  • But Don't All Religions Lead to God?: Navigating the Multi-Faith Maze, Baker, Grand Rapids, 2002 ISBN 0-8010-6439-2
  • After Alpha, Kingsway Publications, 2003 ISBN 1-84291-024-8
  • Thirty Years That Changed the World: The Book of Acts for Today, William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2004 ISBN 0-8028-2766-7
  • St.Thomas Becket, Gracewing, 2004 ISBN 0-85244-590-3
  • Avoiding Jesus: Answers for Skeptics, Cynics, and the Curious (Southern Icons), Baker, Grand Rapids, 2005 ISBN 0-8010-6561-5
  • Sharing Your Faith With Friends and Family, Baker, Grand Rapids, 2005.
  • The Books the Church Suppressed, Monarch Publications, 2005 ISBN 1-85424-698-4

Autobiography

  • Adventure of Faith: Reflections on 50 Years of Christian Service, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2001 ISBN 0-00-710542-8

Footnotes

  1. ^ Randle Manwaring From Controversy to Co-Existence: Evangelicals in the Church of England 1914-1980 (Cambridge: CUP, 2002) 58
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