In God We Trust

The Trustees Of The Old Manor Farm Preservation Trust:

The Right Reverend Bishop David Richard John Evans

Born in 1938,  David attended Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, England where he obtained his BA in 1963 and MA in 1966.

• Clifton College 1963;
• Deacon 1965, Priest 1966, Bishop 1978 Cockfosters, London 1965-66
• SAMS Argentina 1969-1977, Peru 1977-1988
• Bishop Peru 1978-1988, Bishop Bolivia 1982-1988
• Assistant Bishop, Bradford 1988-1993
• General Secretary SAMS 1993-2003
• Honorary Assistant Bishop Chichester 1994-1997
• Honorary Assistant Bishop Rochester 1995-1997
• Honorary Assistant Bishop Birmirmingham 1997-2003.
• Retired 2003
• Honorary Curate in Stourdene Group of parishes 2003-2010
• Honorary Assistant Bishop of Coventry from 2003
• Currently Patron of the CMJ.

Hobbies: golf and philately .
Married to Dorothy; Three married children and 10 grandchildren.

The Reverend H. Beverley Tasker

Date of Birth:  22/05/1941

Trusteeships: No present trusteeships. Former trusteeships, such as that of the Feoffees of Compton Dando and the Board of Governors of St. Brandon’s Clergy Daughter’s school ceased on, or before, my retirement.

Biographical Notes

• Educated at Grange and Hanson Grammar schools in Bradford, Yorkshire
• Served in the Royal Air Force as a Ground Wireless Fitter in military intelligence during the Cold War
• Trained for the ordained ministry in the Church of England, studying theology and philosophy at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford
• Held urban curacy in Manchester
• Chaplain to the Christie hospital, Manchester
• Rural curacy in Bingley, Yorkshire
• Served a short service commission as a chaplain in the Royal Air Force and gained a BA degree in philosophy and literature
• Served as a parish priest in Somerset villages for thirty years
• Married his wife, Barbara, a strong and influential Christian, whilst at Oxford and had a daughter, Jane, who is happily married with three rugby playing sons at university. Sadly, Barbara passed recently.

Publications (with their year of publication) include:

• The Prophecies for Church and State – 1992
• Thought, Empiricism, Existentialism, Cosmology and Metaphysics (Five monographs on philosophy) – 2001
• ReVision of God – 2003
• Ode to Politics – 2013
• At present I am editing a new book of dialogues in philosophy and working on another concerning liberty in the Western World.

Personal Statement:

I passionately believe that Christianity should be presented in a way that can be understood by the modern, scientific generation. I also believe that sections of the Church are drifting away from traditional doctrines and from the original Gospel itself.

That is possibly why people are losing their faith: because they no longer understand what it’s all about.

They are choosing the certainties of science instead. This needs to be addressed with some urgency. The Gospel is, and always will be, demonstrated through the life and teachings of Christ, but we seem to have forgotten that this Gospel actually begins with the metaphysics of the opening words of St John’s Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Behind everything there is the Word. But what does this mean? The Word, logos, was a familiar word in the ancient world. It meant rational principle, or logic, upon which, of course, the whole of today’s science is based. Not only for science, therefore, but for Christianity too, the universe has a rational foundation. That rational foundation is expressed in the laws and teaching of Christ.

He is the key to an understanding of our lives and of life itself. It is in Christ that we find meaning and truth. So, as with Saint Paul, Christianity for today must be both spiritual and intellectual. We, the Church, are neglecting the intellectual aspect of Christianity at our peril.

My personal approach, therefore, is focused on a most difficult subject: developing the relation between a rigorous philosophical logic and a fresh, radical, and more accurate, translation of the New Testament Scriptures – to get back to what they actually mean.

I think this will speak more clearly and with greater conviction to the world of science, to those seeking a personal relationship with Christ and all those who question the existence of God.

Such an approach is needed in this anxious and confused world.

For why?

The Lord our God is good;
His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.