Bullying, Lack of Pastoral Experience appears to undo a Bishop’s Episcopacy
By David W. Virtue, DD, Virtueonline:
The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt. Rev Tim Dakin is at the epicenter of an ecclesiastical storm. Dakin has revealed a bullying personality with no previous experience of parish leadership. Dakin catapulted through the ranks from humble beginnings in Kenya as principal of a college for Church Army students to become the fifth most powerful bishop in the Church of England.
There are also questions over whether he was ever validly ordained. Procedures in most provinces are quite clear and it should be possible to produce documents fairly easily.
How did this happen when so many other candidates were probably better qualified?
A history lesson is in order.
Dakin was born In Tanzania, but grew up in Kenya where his father Stanley Dakin, 91 (and still alive) was General Secretary for Church Army Africa.
The website of his alma mater says that Dakin studied theology and philosophy at University College of St. Mark and St. John in Plymouth, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1986. He then trained for ordination at King’s College London, graduating with a Master of Theology (MTh) degree in 1987. St Marks and St Johns is a private university – like the University of Buckingham. At the time he attended, it was not a university (it did not obtain that status till 2012) but only as a college.
So, Dakin has a degree from an institution that was not at that time a university and evidence is needed of his valid orders! Between 1987 and 1993 Dakin spent as a ‘student’ with Professor Rowan Williams at Christ Church. It came to nothing, a source told VOL. “His appointment to Winchester was during the archiepiscopacy of Rowan Williams when the working of the Crown Nomination Commission was basically to appoint whomever Archbishop Williams said he could work with. The strategy was to appoint people whom Williams could control.”
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