The Oxford Scholars' Library
About This Publication
In this colourful memoir, from 1950’s childhood to the COVID crisis, Brian Mountford describes his life as a priest, which has spanned a period of immense social change and seen the secularisation of Britain to the point where 52% of the population say they have ‘no religion’. Opening with a vibrant account of London in the Sixties, he moves to Cambridge college life in the Seventies, Suburbia in the Eighties, and thirty years as Vicar of the ‘most visited parish church in England’, the University Church, Oxford. Rich in humour and anecdote, he unpacks his liberal theological ideas on the way, addressing questions such as God, the meaning of life, sexual ethics, and the relationship between doubt and faith. A central idea is that the abandonment of organised religion has not eradicated spiritual questioning and, following Philip Larkin’s poem Church Going, from which the book takes its title, people of all ages are forever ‘surprising/A hunger in (themselves) to be more serious.’
About The Author
Brian grew up in London, studied theology in Newcastle and Cambridge, before being ordained into the Church of England at St Paul's Cathedral in 1968. He was Fellow and Chaplain of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in the 70's and Vicar of Southgate in North London until moving to Oxford in 1986. He retired as Vicar of the University Church in 2016. Since then he has worked periodically as Chaplain of St Hilda's College, Oxford, Acting Chaplain of Corpus Christ College, Oxford, and at the Berkshire Independent School, Wellington College.