Obituary: The Rev Dr Peter Toon

From The Times of London via TitusOneNine:

May 20, 2009


One of the main reasons for the growth of confidence among Anglican Evangelicals in the second half of the 20th century was the rise of a new generation of serious evangelical academic theologians. One of these was Peter Toon, who promoted what he called “Reformed Catholicism”. As a teacher and writer he became well known in many parts of the world.

Born in Yorkshire in 1939, he attended Hemsworth Grammar School and then went to the Methodist Cliffe College. He studied theology at King’s College London, gaining two degrees. This gave him his academic expertise, but he reacted against the liberal theology taught there. After teaching religious studies, he was ordained to a curacy in Skelmersdale (Liverpool) in 1973. In 1974 he took up a three-year appointment at Latimer House, Oxford, where he researched his PhD thesis on evangelical theology 1833- 56. This important work traced the evangelical reaction to the Tractarian Movement. He then taught for six years at Oakhill Theological College. His appointment was seen as assisting in raising the academic level of the college. He combined this post with being lecturer at St Giles-in-the-fields. In 1982 he began a five-year period as director of post-ordination training in the diocese of St Edmundsbury. He then became vicar of Staindrop in Co Durham.

In 1991 he moved to the US to teach at the very High Church and conservative theological college of Nashotah House, Wisconsin. He was appalled by what he saw as the excessive liberalism of most of the Episcopal Church and worked for the Prayer Book Society, defending The Book of Common Prayer against the newly authorised American Prayer Book. He was opposed to the use of inclusive language in liturgy. In 2001 he moved to the diocese of Lichfield and he spent five years in the north Staffordshire parishes of Biddulph Moor and Brown Edge, where his highly sympathetic pastoral expertise was much appreciated.

The research which lay behind his writings was monumental and he tried to put opposing views in a clear and fair way. His eccentric, warm and humorous style concealed a strong and determined faith. He published more than 25 books as well as many articles. From 1985 to 2001 he edited the parish magazine Home Words. In 2005 he retired and returned to the US. He was distressed by developments in the Anglican Communion and became sympathetic to those US Anglicans who seceded from the Episcopal Church.

Toon contracted the rare disease amyloidosis. He married his wife Vita in 1962 and they had one daughter.

The Rev Peter Toon, theologian, was born on October 25, 1939. He died on April 25, 2009, aged 69