Arthur Michael Ramsey, Baron Ramsey of Canterbury, (14 November 1904 – 23 April 1988) was an English Anglican bishop and life peer. He served as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury. He was appointed on 31 May 1961 and held the office until 1974, having previously been appointed Bishop of Durham in 1952 and the Archbishop of York in 1956.
He was known as a theologian, educator, and advocate of Christian unity.
Early life
Ramsey was born in Cambridge, England in 1904. His parents were Arthur Stanley Ramsey (1867–1954) and Mary Agnes Ramsey née Wilson (1875–1927); his father was a Congregationalist and mathematician and his mother was a socialist and suffragette. He was educated at Sandroyd School, Wiltshire, King's College School, Cambridge, Repton School (where the headmaster was a future Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Francis Fisher) and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where his father was president of the college. At university he was president of the Cambridge Union Society and his support for the Liberal Party won him praise from H. H. Asquith.
Ramsey's elder brother, Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930), was a mathematician and philosopher (of atheist convictions). He was something of a prodigy who, when only 19, translated Wittgenstein's Tractatus into English.
During his time in Cambridge, Ramsey came under the influence of the Anglo-Catholic dean of Corpus Christi College, Edwyn Clement Hoskyns. On the advice of Eric Milner-White he trained at Cuddesdon, where he became friends with Austin Farrer and was introduced to Orthodox Christian ideas by Derwas Chitty. He graduated in 1927 with a First-class degree in Theology.
Ordained ministry
Ramsey was ordained in 1928 and became a curate in Liverpool, where he was influenced by Charles Raven.
After this he became a lecturer to ordination candidates at the Bishop's Hostel in Lincoln. During this time he published a book, The Gospel and the Catholic Church (1936). He then ministered at St Botolph's Church, Boston and at St Bene't's Church, Cambridge, before being offered a canonry at Durham Cathedral and the Van Mildert Chair of Divinity in the Department of Theology at Durham University. After this, in 1950, he became the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, but left to become a bishop after only a short time in office.
Ramsey married Joan A. C. Hamilton (1910–1995) at Durham in the early summer of 1942.
Episcopal ministry
In 1952, he was appointed Bishop of Durham. He was consecrated a bishop by Cyril Garbett, Archbishop of York, at York Minster on Michaelmas (29 September) that year (by which his election to the See of Durham must have already been confirmed). In 1956 he became Archbishop of York and, in 1961, Archbishop of Canterbury. During his time as archbishop he travelled widely and saw the creation of the General Synod. Retirement ages for clergy were cut from 75 to 70.
Theology and churchmanship
In a lecture on Ramsey, John Macquarrie asked, “what kind of theologian was he?” and answered that “he was thoroughly Anglican.” Macquarrie explained that Ramsey's theology is (1) “based on the scriptures”, (2) the church's “tradition”, and (3) “reason and conscience”. Ramsey held to the Anglo-Catholic tradition, but he appreciated other points of view. This was especially true after he became a bishop who ministered to diverse Anglicans.
As an Anglo-Catholic with a nonconformist background, Ramsey had a broad religious outlook. He had a particular regard for the Eastern Orthodox concept of "glory", and his favourite book he had written was his 1949 work The Transfiguration.
Ramsey's first reaction to J. A. T. Robinson's Honest to God (1963) was hostile. However, he soon published a short response entitled Image Old and New, in which he engaged seriously with Robinson's ideas.
Conscious always of the atheism which his short-lived brother Frank had espoused, he maintained a lifelong respect for honest unbelief, and considered that such unbelief would not automatically be a barrier to salvation. Acting on his respect for beliefs other than his, Ramsey made a barefoot visit to the grave of Mahatma Gandhi.
Although he disagreed with a lot of Karl Barth's thinking, his relations with him were warm.
Following observations of a religious mission at Cambridge, he had an early dislike of evangelists and mass rallies, which he feared relied too much on emotion. This led him to be critical of Billy Graham, although the two later became friends and Ramsey even took to the stage at a Graham rally in Rio de Janeiro. One of his later books, The Charismatic Christ (1973), engaged with the charismatic movement.