‘Chichester’ has long been associated in my mind with a hero of mine, Bishop George Bell, who was its diocesan from 1929 until only a year before his death in 1958. That he remained in the same English see for nearly three decades – passed over for Canterbury and then London – was due to his sustained public stances on moral issues. His insistence that God’s church transcended national and denominational claims proved costly to him not only with regard to appointments, but also in his reputation and relationships.
Andrew Chandler’s new biography of this utterly English yet ecumenical Christian traces Bell’s life of public holiness with considerable skill. Well written and documented, it is beautifully organized and readable: as part of the George Bell Institute, Chandler is well placed to have access to Bell’s enormous archive but could perhaps be suspected of bias. The claim is made on the back cover that this is ‘a remarkably comprehensive, judicious and vigorous account of one of the great prophetic bishops of twentieth-century Europe and of the worldwide Anglican Communion’. It is well justified.
The book opens and closes by drawing attention to Bell’s ‘little blue notebook’, recording his daily life and concerns. It conveys a profoundly earthed personal spiritual life, despite Bell’s early and sustained exposure to ecclesial administration – ‘a world of life, work and worship’. After gaining a first-class degree at Oxford, Bell went from industrial Leeds to be Archbishop Randall Davidson’s domestic chaplain in 1914. His decade there included the Great War (in which Bell’s two brothers were killed) and the 1920 Lambeth Conference (where he ‘oiled the machinery and turned the wheels’). Most significantly, it saw the young priest engage with Continental church leaders, notably ecumenical pioneer Archbishop Nathan Söderblom of Uppsala, who wrote to Albert Schweitzer, urging him to visit Bell when in London.
Bell grasped that the ecumenical movement, then in its beginnings, was of vital importance if Europe was not to be drawn away from its Christian heritage. The breakdown of societies in the wake of the Great War, and especially the rise of Nazism, could only be addressed if the claims of the Kingdom of God were lived. Deep relationships opened with German church leaders, most notably the young Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who remained close to Bell until his death.
In 1924 Bell went from Lambeth to Canterbury as Dean, and five years later to Chichester as bishop, aged just 42. He used his place in the House of Lords to speak out on moral issues, most notably his strident criticism to carpet-bombing cities, and the failure of the Allies to take seriously his credible information about anti-Hitler groups in Germany. As public opinion about Germans (and later Russians) changed, Bell adapted his responses while remaining steadfast in his moral positions, leading to much misunderstanding. He was a lone voice seeking to be a bridge between anti-Nazi Germans, especially in the Confessing Church, and the British Government. After the war, he was a key figure in the formation of the World Council of Churches, and supporter of the Church of South India.
Chandler’s account untangles the interwoven threads of Bell’s multi-faceted ministry – from his domestic life with Henrietta to diocesan, ecumenical, national and global involvements. Successive Archbishops of Canterbury – Davidson, Lang, Temple and Fisher – looked to Bell for counsel, even while sometimes being frustrated by his intransigence, especially his rejection of Churchill’s ‘no conditions’ war policy. And yet somehow, in the midst of a very busy life, Bell managed to write several books, notably his biography of Davidson.
The final chapter is also the longest: ‘The Place of George Bell’, from which I cannot resist making some quotations: ‘For the church of God is indeed in the world, if not of it – and the riddle is there to be lived, not resolved.’ Chandler writes: ‘The cast that performed in the drama of Bell’s life is striking, for in it so much of the eloquence, and so much of the tragedy, of his age could be glimpsed.’ As well as those mentioned above, this included T.S. Eliot, Mohandas Gandhi, Gordon Rupp, Eberhard Bethge, Donald Mackinnon, D.S. Radhakrishnan, Gustav Aulén, Herbert Waddams. No reference is made to Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, whom Bell must have encountered in his Lambeth years, and whose ministry in the Great War had similarities to Bell’s in World War II. But that is a minor lacuna. On ecumenism, Chandler writes: ‘For Bell, the ecumenical vision encompassed not merely the ecumenical dialogues of churches ... but the great idea that the church existed to show a divided humanity its essential unity.’ A full Bibliography and Index round out the work.
This book addresses far more than just Anglicans. It raises questions about simplistic views among English-speakers of what was at stake in World War II; it gives important insights into contemporary debates about the nature of Europe; it challenges all involved in ecumenical work to keep their eyes open to the breadth of God’s mission. Most of all, it reminds all who own the name of Christ of the value, importance, and cost, of sustained public witness to Christ. Bell lived the famous words of his friend Bonhoeffer: ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ Bishop George Bell is commemorated in the Calendar of the Church of England.
On 22 October 2015, however, a (secret) settlement was disclosed by the Church of England over alleged sexual abuses of a child by Bell, when he was in his 60s. Chandler notes this in his Preface, and discusses it in an Appendix. The repercussions are ongoing in the Church of England.
