12
September 2013. Oliver Barclay passes to the Church Triumphant.
Oliver Barclay, a scion of the banking family and second
General Secretary of IVF/UCCF, died at his home in Leicester yesterday, 12
September 2013, aged 94.
He was born in Kobe, Japan, on 22 February 1919, the son
of Joseph Gurney Barclay (who served with what is now the Church Mission
Society). His great grandfather was the MP Thomas Fowell Buxton who campaigned
with William Wilberforce as part of the influential Clapham Sect.
Oliver first joined the small IVF team in 1945, having
completed a doctorate in zoology. His original hope was to teach in one
of China’s newer universities, but Douglas Johnson, IVF founding General
Secretary (always known as DJ), persuaded him to defer his departure by two
years. As Oliver’s newly-created role as Assistant Secretary took shape, it
soon became clear that the universities of Britain and Ireland would instead be
his life’s work.
Oliver Barclay served for two years as a wartime
President of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) and as
Chairman of the students’ national IVF Executive Committee. From his days
in Trinity College, Cambridge, he formed a lifelong friendship with John Stott,
also at Trinity, and two years his junior. Both men would serve as lifetime
Honorary Vice-Presidents of the CICCU.
As Chair of the student national IVF Executive, Oliver
was privy to DJ’s plans that the IVF should found a Centre for Biblical
Research in a university town, to strengthen the roots of the church in the
then very liberal Theology faculties of the universities. What would soon
become Tyndale House, Cambridge (secured in 1944 and opened in 1945) had
originally belonged to a member of the Barclay family. When Oliver heard it was
to be sold, he conferred straight away with DJ, as he could see the strategic
benefit of its location, close to Ridley Hall and the Cambridge University
Library. Financial help from John Laing (later Sir John Laing of J W Laing
Construction) and others made the purchase possible, and Tyndale House now
hosts one of the finest libraries for biblical research in the world.
In 1953, Oliver became the first IVF Universities
Secretary, supporting the IVF travelling secretaries [now UCCF staff workers]
around the four nations. The liberal hold in the university theology faculties,
and in the churches, created much opposition to evangelical influences among
students. When news broke in 1954 of the invitation by the CICCU to the US
evangelist Billy Graham to lead the 1955 triennial university mission, with
John Stott as his Chief Assistant Missioner, The Times carried a lengthy
correspondence on the matter. This was of such substance that it was later
published (by The Times) as a separate booklet.
In 1963 the government’s Robbins Report was published,
which led to massive expansion in higher education. In 1964 Oliver
Barclay succeeded Douglas Johnson as IVF General Secretary. This was the same
year his first wife, Dorothy, a consultant surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital
(whom he had married in 1949) died of cancer, leaving four children. The
following year, Oliver married Daisy Hickey, a family friend.
Oliver Barclay steered the Inter-Varsity Fellowship
through its own significant expansion to engage with the times, as new
universities and colleges were founded, and as a surge of change swept through
societal norms. In 1974, under Dr Barclay’s leadership, the IVF office
was relocated from Bedford Square in central London to De Montfort Street, Leicester,
and in 1975 the movement’s name was changed to the Universities and Colleges
Christian Fellowship (UCCF) to reflect the growing work in the polytechnics and
colleges of education. Its publishing wing, by then known as Inter-Varsity
Press (IVP) was the UK’s leading evangelical publishing house.
Richard Cunningham, UCCF Director writes: ‘Oliver was an
able academic, author, mentor and leader, and a great friend to so many. And
Daisy’s welcome and care of generations of staff was legendary. Oliver
always kept a loving eye on UCCF and when I began as the inexperienced leader
of the work he had nurtured for so many years, I greatly looked forward to my
termly meal with him and the wise letter that always followed.’
Oliver Barclay urged clear-thinking evangelical graduates
to consider two major directions: to pursue an academic career; or if ordained
to apply for vacant churches in university towns. Gradually the tide of
liberalism began to turn. Oliver was succeeded in 1980 by Robin Wells then a
scientific Advisor to the South African Government, whom Oliver had first met
while Robin was a doctoral student at Imperial College. This was just as
a second stage of growth in tertiary education was beginning. Under Robin Wells
from the mid-late 1980s the regional teams would be formed, opening the way for
the appointment, under Bob Horn’s leadership, of the first relay workers.
In retirement, Dr Barclay continued to serve on the IVP
long-range planning group, and was instrumental in the founding of the UCCF
Research Council to oversee the work of Tyndale House in Cambridge and the new
Whitefield Institute in Oxford. He was co-founder in 1989 of the journal Science
and Christian Belief, joint organ of the Victoria Institute and of
Christians in Science, formerly the Research Scientists Christian Fellowship,
which traced its roots back to a small group of research scientists Oliver had
first drawn together in his student days.
Oliver served on the Executive Committee of the
International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) from 1959-1983, and as
its chair from 1971-79. He served as an Honorary Vice-President from 1983-91,
and was always particularly thrilled to see its pioneering work pass into the
hands of national leaders. This global movement now has presence in over 150
nations.
Oliver Barclay wrote several books including Evangelicalism
in Britain 1935-1995 (IVP, 1997) to which he brought a unique perspective.
For some titles he adopted the pseudonym A N Triton. In the 1980s he edited a
book series entitled When Christians Disagree himself contributing to
the volume on Pacifism and War. Here he showed how, now more informed
than in his student years when he espoused the pacifist convictions of his
Quaker forebears, he had moved to adopt the Just War theory.
He had no formal theological training but developed in
himself – and cultivated in his staff – the ability to ‘think theologically’.
He read through Calvin’s Institutes each year and prayed daily for a
deeper understanding of the meaning of the death of Christ. He never lost sight
of his dual task, to strengthen a witness to Christ both in the student world
and among faculty. He followed news of UCCF missions closely until recent
months, and remained as convinced as he had been in his early days that
ministry in the university world was the most strategic way to build a
thoughtful acceptance of biblical truth.
We thank God for Oliver Barclay’s tenacity and
far-sightedness, his shrewd judgment and his passion for the gospel; and we
commend his widow Daisy and his four children to your prayers.
News of the Thanksgiving Service will be announced.
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