Nicholas Lash Explained

Nicholas Lash
Birth Name:Nicholas Langrishe Alleyne Lash
Birth Date:6 April 1934
Birth Place:India
Death Place:Cambridge, England
Nationality:English
Children:Dominic Lash
Alma Mater:St Mary's College, Oscott
Discipline:Theology
Module:
Child:yes
Religion:Christianity (Roman Catholic)
Church:Latin Church
Ordained:1963
Laicized:1975

Nicholas Langrishe Alleyne Lash (6 April 1934 – 11 July 2020)[1] was an English Roman Catholic theologian. Having served in the British Army, he trained for Holy Orders at St Mary's College, Oscott, and worked as a Catholic priest until 1975. He left the priesthood and turned to full-time academia, working as a lecturer and then Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity (1978–1999) at the University of Cambridge.

Career

Military service

Lash served in the Royal Engineers from 1951 to 1957.[2] He was commissioned in the British Army on 10 January 1953 as a second lieutenant, as part of his national service.On 1 October 1954, he was promoted to lieutenant and moved to a short-service commission, allowing him to continue his army career. He was moved to the Regular Army Reserve of Officers on 29 August 1957, thereby ending his military service.

Ministry and academia

He studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood at St Mary's College, Oscott, between 1957 and 1963. After being ordained, he worked as an assistant priest in Slough. In 1969, he was elected a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, the only college of the University of Cambridge whose college chapel is Roman Catholic. From 1971 to 1975, he served as Dean of St Edmund's.[3] In 1975, he left the priesthood and became a lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge.[4] From 1978 to 1999, he held the post of Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity[5] at the University of Cambridge, succeeding Donald MacKinnon and being succeeded by Denys Turner.

Theology

Nicholas Lash was the author of numerous theological books and was a regular contributor to The Tablet.[6] A Roman Catholic and considered a liberal, Lash voiced strong but measured criticism of practices among leading figures in his tradition, arguing for open debate on a variety of topics, including the ordination of women.

He was reportedly one of the few Catholic theologians to have read the whole of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics and the whole of Karl Rahner's Theological Investigations. One of Lash's strongest intellectual influences seems to have been the recovery of Aquinas's theology, using forms of philosophical argument influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, which became influential in the 1970s, associated with Cornelius Ernst and Fergus Kerr. Arguably his most significant piece of writing was also one of his shortest, his reflections on the Apostles' Creed, which includes discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity.

He helped organize the 1973 symposium at Maynooth on Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology.

Family

Lash was born to Joan Mary Moore, a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, and Brigadier Henry Alleyne Lash, an officer in the British Indian Army. He had an elder brother, Father Ephrem Lash (; 3 December 1930 – 15 March 2016), who became an Eastern Orthodox archimandrite and prominent translator of patristic and liturgical texts. Nicholas also had two sisters: the artist and novelist Susannah Lash and the writer Jini Fiennes. The latter had seven children, including actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, filmmakers Sophie and Martha Fiennes, conservationist Jacob Fiennes, and musician Magnus Fiennes.

Lash was educated at Worth Preparatory School (Jan 1945 – July 1947) and Downside School (Sep 1947 – Dec 1950).

After leaving the priesthood, Lash married Janet in 1976. Together, they had a son, Dominic.

Works

His books include

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Professor Nicholas Lash has died . Independent Catholic News . July 11, 2020 . Encyclopedia of Things . July 11, 2020.
  2. Web site: Lash, Prof. Nicholas Langrishe Alleyne . . Oxford University Press . 4 September 2020 . en . 10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U23842 . 1 December 2019. 978-0-19-954088-4 .
  3. Web site: Nicholas Lash, RIP . St Edmund's College Cambridge. July 15, 2020. July 23, 2020.
  4. Web site: A tribute to Cambridge professor Nicholas Lash . Diocese of East Anglia . July 16, 2020. July 23, 2020.
  5. News: Nicholas Lash. guardian.co.uk. 25 December 2010. London. 29 January 2009.
  6. Web site: Search: Nicholas Lash. The Tablet. 25 December 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20180507003437/http://www.thetablet.co.uk/search.php?q=Nicholas+Lash&type=all. 7 May 2018. dead.