William Temple

William Temple (15 October 1881 - 26 October 1944)

“Christian charity manifests itself in the temporal order as a supra-natural discernment of, and adhesion to, justice in relation to the equilibrium of power.”

—William Temple, writing in the Christian News-Letter of 29 December 1943, on ’What Christians Stand For in the Secular World’, quoted on page 536 of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, by F. A. Iremonger, (Oxford, 1948) in the chapter by Dorothy Emmet, “The Philosopher”.


Dry as dust, you would think, a biography read now of a mid-twentieth century Anglican divine and prelate. William Temple began as a junior teacher of philosophy at an Oxford college - well actually as a son of a bishop who became Archbishop of Canterbury - then sought holy orders, after seeking understanding of his own faith, became deacon, priest, bishop, and archbishop in due order. He was known in his time as a preeminent ecclesiastical thinker, able to lead his church, the established church in England, in war-time, and into new visions of ecumenical community and the pursuit of justice in relation to society. His belief was that the Christian held an ultimate allegiance not to any party or nation but to God. So that turns out to be very relevant today. We cannot abandon hope for a Christian activity in pursuit of justice, certainly not now, and we are compelled to seek a means for serving the ultimate end of our ultimate allegiance through the present catastrophe. The catastrophe I mean is that of the continued abandonment of right relations between peoples, and that means justice, exhibited by too many of our secular politicians. “If you want peace, work for justice”—Paul VI.

William Temple

By way of comment on Bishop Rickel's blog post 'A "Pissing" Section in the Pool' 5/1/20 http://www.bishoprickel.com/blog/a-pissing-section-in-the-pool:

The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those that are not its members (William Temple). We are more the church when we not about just ourselves than when we are just "Him" and me... Just now I was reading some letters William Temple wrote in response to his 'current situation' - the second World War - in response to suggestions he pray for Victory and after the war to focus on rebuilding the church at home and not worry about those people over there on the continent... to the second that he did support the aid to rebuilding churches as "I am quite sure that it is a case like that of the missionary claim and we shall tend to gain more for the Church at home by shewing that we care for the Church in Europe and throughout the world than if we concentrate on home needs only" and to the first that (despite his strong support for the war effort) "it seems to me that the primary concern in prayer - and I mean 'primary' quite seriously - must be the approach to the Father of all men, with recognition that all His other children have the same right of approach, and that if we pray as our Lord taught us, we are never praying against each other, because we are always praying not that what we want shall be done, but that what God wants shall be done, and that we may be used for doing it" -- F. A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters. Oxford, 1948. (555-556, 561)

Love needs that to which it may give itself

The Christian position ... is that God is love; love needs that to which it may give itself; and the universe is created as the object of the infinite love of God....

The essence of the Christian religion … is an experience of the power of the love of God in Christ changing our hopes and desires.

William Temple, ca 1910, in Highway magazine, quoted in William Temple: Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, by F. A. Iremonger. London: Oxford University Press, 1948. 85.

What we need desperately in our country is to cultivate independence of mind and fellowship of spirit, and what we are developing through the present machinery of our political life, and developing very fast, is herd mentality with the spirit of pugnacity. You have got to try to invert that and teach people to feel together and to think for themselves, instead of thinking together and feeling for themselves. It is going to be done in the realization of the idea that we are all children of one family, and that our Father is the God of love.

William Temple, in a sermon preached for the I.C.F at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, in October 1928. Op. cit., 509.