Revd Beth Allison-Glenny

The Revd Beth Allison-Glenny

Regent’s alumna Revd Beth Allison-Glenny tells us about her return to Regent’s as the new Chaplain, Head of Welfare and Tutorial Fellow in Theology, and shares her passion for pastoral and welfare issues.

When I was asked to write about my return to Regent’s, I’ve found myself reflecting on all the ways I have never quite left.

I did my ministerial formation and MTh in Applied Theology here a decade ago. I wore out the M40 as I travelled in from a little Free Church chapel in Leicestershire each week and spent two days with the rest of the ministerial cohort thinking, learning, praying, debating and - I’ll be honest – testing out a few of Oxford’s finest watering holes. As I finished at Regent’s, John Bunyan Baptist Church in Cowley called me, and so I found myself only a mile away, which was extremely handy for the Bodleian access whilst finishing off my dissertation. I remember spending an afternoon in the ‘RadCam’ reading womanist critiques of feminism for failing to comprehend fully the privileges of ethnicity, class and education. As I was trying to make sense of what I had read and how to assimilate it into my work, I went to chair a deacon’s meeting. We were having a conversation about doing a bible study in multiple languages; I was determined to be inclusive and accessible. ‘That won’t work,’ a deacon pointed out to me frankly. They went on: hadn’t I noticed those individuals who were unable to read at all, and the times other people signed the cards on their behalf? The privilege of an Oxford education was a lesson I learned in my soul that day. It was a ten-minute cycle ride, but a world apart.

I returned to Regent’s each year for Repast and, even after I moved on from Cowley, I got the joy of returning to teach the ministerials on an ad hoc basis and even preaching in college Chapel. For the past three years I served as the Public Issues Enabler for the Baptist Union of Great Britain, blending together theology, politics and life in the public square. A lot of my role was to be part of the ecumenical Joint Public Issues Team, at that point the Baptist, Methodist, United Reformed and Church of Scotland Churches all working together in partnership on matters of peace and justice. There was a deep joy in working with a group of Christians who were simultaneously so kind and so fierce in their pursuit of what is good; using their expertise, time and passion to advocate to make a better world and a better church.

The thing I missed, however, was the pastoral care. When the Chaplaincy at Regent’s was advertised, it was a sense of being called back home. I was passionate about the effects the pandemic was having on those who were at formative life stages, and I thought it would be a huge honour to work with students whose lives have been so brutally interrupted and who will have to inherit a climate crisis in their lifetime. Then Oxford can come with some huge pressures (not least from ourselves), as we bring the brightest and most brilliant of people together from across the world.

I’m a term in now, and it’s been a whirlwind of new learning and a behind-thescenes view of a college community I knew well. I’m really glad I leaned into that call to come; being here – and most of all, getting to be with the people here - remains a privilege for which I am very grateful.