The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

I am, of course, grateful that you printed, in your September issue, my sermon of 13th August [Trinity 9] which deliberately made no reference to Alan or his death of which many in church will only have heard that morning.

I am humbled and/or honoured by the fact that through the coincidence of time my sermon appears in the very same issue as, and immediately follows, Canon Buckler’s brilliant address at Alan’s funeral, a very perceptive and sensitive letter/article from Paul Hickey and Sylvia Read’s delightful poem.
For some years Alan and I were two elder statesmen [sadly always getting older and only one of us a diplomat!] in the chancel; it was good to have him up there. I shall not seek to add to wonderful words which have already been spoken about him.

If tested, Alan and I would probably have been discovered to disagree on many things but on one thing at least – the most important thing – we would have been found to agree, namely that strong and overriding conviction that God is love, which Paul Hickey mentions. Like so many of us preachers and, indeed, many soloist musicians and actors Alan often seemed to me to have difficulty when preaching, in getting “himself” out of the way and allowing the music to flow, but it was a problem which, in my judgement, he more and more overcame in the last few years and his sermons, always appreciated, were the greater for it.

Universalist? Probably, but if so in good company. We are told that amongst many others William Temple, Robert Runcie and Hans Kung were, at heart, universalists. Paul Hickey points to the problems that universalism can raise of us members of the Christian religion. For me, far more and greater problems in our belief that God is love arise if universalism is wrong.
Perhaps those of us who are universalists need to be because something within us tells us that, if not, we ourselves – never mind others! – will never get through “them pearly gates” through which Alan has surely stepped, to find again his Rosemary [of blessed memory].

Derek Spottiswoode