Get to Know - James Harding

Revd Dr James Harding is Director of St Mellitus College, South West

Tell us a bit about yourself

Hi everyone, my name is James Harding. I was born, and spent my childhood in Yorkshire, then moved to Liverpool to study, but ended up living there for 20 years before heading to Thailand and then later Malaysia as a missionary theological educator. I’ve been married to Katie for 21 years this year, and we have 3 children: Agnes is 13, Noah is 11, and Elsie will be 10 this year. We have a golden-doodle dog called Maggi Mee (the Malaysian name for instant noodles). As a family we like a bit of adventure, eating spicy food, and taking some risks. My kids are avid Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai practitioners and we like to spar together as a family. My academic background is varied. I excelled in NT Greek as an undergraduate, specialised in interfaith philosophy of religion at the MA level, and was awarded my PhD in the book of Revelation in 2006. As part of my ordination training, I was awarded an MProf degree in practical theology, after taking an empirical and social sciences approach to the study of church planting. I was ordained Deacon in 2011 in the Diocese of Liverpool, then priested the following year, serving a number of curacies, but with a particular focus on university chaplaincy. I first joined St Mellitus in 2013 as the Chelmsford Tutor and Lecturer in Missiology and spent a wonderful three years teaching at the Chelmsford and London centres. Then in 2016 we were invited to pioneer and lead St Paul’s Theological College, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. SPTC Malaysia is part of the Anglican Diocese of West Malaysia and is attached to Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang – an HTB church plant. Over the past five years we’ve seen the College grow remarkably, with an average student community of around 100 people, coming from nearly 40 different churches spread across 14 denominations, 13 countries, and 10 different ethnicities, studying for a BA in Theology, Mission and Ministry accredited by the Asia Theological Association. I think we feel at this time a bit like Saints Piran and Petroc, blown across the seas and tides to Cornwall and Devon by the wind of the Spirit. We are so excited about starting my new role at St Mellitus South West.

What is your faith story?

I grew up in a lively Christian family. My nan and my mum were brought to faith by a miraculous healing experience when some of the early Pentecostal pioneers, like Smith Wigglesworth, W.F.P Burton and Jimmy Salter knocked on their door and asked if anyone needed prayer for healing. My family were coal miners, and my great uncle (who was dying - his lung had completely stopped working) had a powerful healing experience. God literally gave him a new lung, and he lived a further sixty years after that healing encounter. We grew up knowing that signs and wonders could be an ordinary part of the Christian life. I remember being 4 years old and walking to the front of the church in response to an old-school-style Pentecostal altar call. But it wasn’t until I was 10 years old that I was to experience supernatural healing for myself. I was hit by a speeding car whilst crossing the road. The impact on my head was so severe that part of the left frontal lobe of my brain was destroyed. I had major brain surgery twice, a blood clot removed from my brain, and during the first three days in Intensive Care, each day the neurosurgeon told my mum that I would die that day. Each day she prayed for me, and I continued to live. Then the diagnosis was that I would live, but never be able to read or write, or hold a conversation because of my particular type of brain damage. I spent the next six months in and out of a coma, the next year in a wheelchair, and a few years on crutches, but (to cut a long story short) I experienced miraculous healing. This has always given me a profound sense that God kept me alive for a reason, and that the reason must be to use those parts of my brain that were damaged for Him and for His glory. To do theology – to read and write and speak words about God, is something that medically I should not be able to do. Of course, that was a long time ago, and living a daily walk following Jesus isn’t easy. But by God’s grace, I’m still following Him, still thinking about Him, and still talking about Him. And I hope to never stop doing that!

God is calling you. I know that He is because that’s what He’s like and that’s what He does! God calls people. So, the question isn’t so much on the macro, meta level: “am I called?” You are! The question is more on the micro level, to ask: “what specifically is God calling me to?” and “can I faithfully and obediently step into that calling at St Mellitus South West?”

Why St Mellitus College?

I love St Mellitus College. During my previous three years based in Chelmsford and at the London teaching centre, I had a wonderful time. It was so inspiring to be working with such a dynamic and energetic staff team. Really, the only reason we left in 2016, was that we were trying to be obedient to God’s call on our lives. And the same is true for leaving SPTC Malaysia and heading back to SMC five years later. We’re just trying to be obedient to God’s call and say “yes” to Him as He leads and guides us as a family on mission into the next stage that God has in store for us. For me, after over twenty years in theological education as a student and lecturer in a variety of contexts, to be part of a learning community where we do our theology in the context of prayer and worship is just so special. Because as we pray and worship our way into our theology, it changes the questions we ask, and it changes the answers that we give. The posture of proskuneō, of bowing down in worship as we engage in theological study, means that we are not just saying words about God, but listening to words from God, and offering words back to God. And I love how at SMC this isn’t just done according to one particular favoured style or tradition. But that we can be multi-lingual in our worship, offering both an abandoned charismatic, hands-in-the-air, singing-in-the-spirit approach to worship, as well as making prostrations, signing ourselves with the cross, and drawing on the rich sacramental symbols of incense and ash and candlelight as we engage with ancient liturgical resources (and everything else in between!) But, of course, we mustn’t keep what God is saying to us, and what we are learning from the great theological voices of the past, just to ourselves. These treasures are to be shared. This is why I believe so strongly in the mixed-mode, church context-based model of training. This is theology done for the sake of the world, and for the breaking-in of the kingdom. And this is what makes St Mellitus College unique.

What are you hoping and expectant for in your role?

I’m looking forward to making lots of new friends. My approach to leadership, actually to life in general, is that it’s all about growing relationships, and increasing interpersonal connectivity. So, I’m really looking forward to getting to know the existing staff team and students at SMC-SW, building on what has already been achieved there over the past five years, and growing the staff team and student body into the future God holds for us together. I’m a strong advocate of the Missio Dei approach to mission, so I’m going to be watching and waiting to see where God is already at work, what God is already doing, and just join in with that and bless it, and fan it into flame. I’m hoping that my passion for collaborative and holistic mission (wherever God has placed us) is something that the College community sees leaking out of me onto everyone I come into contact with. And I’m expectant about seeing and nurturing young, fresh shoots of pioneering, church-planting and entrepreneurial approaches to mission. I want to encourage the College community into missional risk-taking, embracing courageous, innovative, adventurous, and pioneering forms of expressing our faith. But, in the ecclesial mixed-economy we find ourselves ministering in, I don’t want to just train people to specialise in either/or inherited or emerging forms of church, but I want to train people to be ecclesially multilingual; able to do both rural and urban ministry; able to engage in both traditional and new, both inherited and pioneering forms of being and doing church. And to do that well.

The posture of proskuneō, of bowing down in worship as we engage in theological study, means that we are not just saying words about God, but listening to words from God, and offering words back to God. And I love how at SMC this isn’t just done according to one particular favoured style or tradition

What are you passionate about?

I’m one of those people who if I like something, or if I’m into something, I’m really, really into it, and get super, over-the-top passionate about it. So I’m passionate about a lot of things. As a theological educator, I’m passionate about contextual theology. Of finding ways to close the gap between the authors and first readers of the biblical text and of readers reading it in contemporary contexts. Of exploring ways of taking the timeless unchanging gospel message and packaging into contextually relevant and appealing forms of evangelism. Of finding fresh ways emerging from the soil on which we stand to speak of timeless and eternal theological truths. Of weaving together words about God with the cultures which we inhabit. This passion has led me, during the four years that I was a visiting member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to try and find ways to speak about God within the Chinese diaspora context. So, for example, I was able to draw on my expertise in the book of Revelation and apocalypticism to speak at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences on the misuse of the Apocalypse by Dōngfāng Shǎndian and Sān bān púrén Pài cults and to offer a comparative parallel reading of the Book of Revelation with Wu Cheng’en’s, Xī Yóu Jì, at the Centre for the Study of Christianity, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China. And whilst I could never claim to be an Old Testament scholar, my passion for contextual theology and training in social sciences methodology inspired me to present a paper at the Minzu University of China, Beijing, on shared motifs in the Hebrew Book of Psalms with Confucius’ Shījīng – the Chinese Book of Songs, and to present a paper on Dà Yǔ Zhì Shuǐ the “Chinese Noah” as a model for the Sinicization of Christianity at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Of course, it could be said that such highly specialised work might be totally irrelevant to mission and ministry in Cornwall and Devon. But I believe that this passion I have for contextual theology within the culture will help me to try and learn and explore ways to speak about God which emerge from out of the contextual soil of the South West.

What would you say to someone considering studying theology or exploring their vocation?

God is calling you. I know that He is because that’s what He’s like and that’s what He does! God calls people. So, the question isn’t so much on the macro, meta-level: “am I called?” You are! The question is more on the micro level, to ask: “what specifically is God calling me to?” and “can I faithfully and obediently step into that calling at St Mellitus South West?” And there are two important ways to answer and discern that calling. The first is the inward, subjective sense of calling. That’s in your heart, your feelings and emotions and intuition. But that subjective sense of calling on its own, as important as it is, won’t get you out of bed on a cold, rainy Tuesday morning to say Morning Prayer with us at SMC-SW, and study the Great Schism of 1054 and the origin of the filioque creedal clause, or to write your next essay on the length of St Athanasius’ beard. You also need that external, objective calling which comes from a trust in, and obedience to, what the Church is saying, through its discernment processes, through your Vicar or pastor, through vocations advisors, DDOs and Bishops, and even through your family. There’s also that external objective calling that comes through the need in your local church and the local community. What can you offer back to that place that has nurtured you in your faith to this point by staying and training where you are in your local church context? So, in terms of calling and vocation, the sweet spot is where your internal and subjective sense of being called meets that externally outward and objective call of the Church. And, of course, we hope and pray that we can nurture your call here at St Mellitus College, South West.

And finally, for something unexpected…

During lockdown, I’ve been trying to learn Mongolian nasal yodelling. But for some reason, I can’t get a place on the worship team?!?

To do theology – to read and write and speak words about God, is something that medically I should not be able to do. Of course, that was a long time ago, and living a daily walk following Jesus isn’t easy. But by God’s grace, I’m still following Him, still thinking about Him, and still talking about Him. And I hope to never stop doing that!