Michael Ball (bishop)

Michael Ball (bishop)
For other people named Michael Ball, see Michael Ball (disambiguation).

Michael Thomas Ball (born 14 February 1932) is an Anglican bishop and the co-founder of the Community of the Glorious Ascension. He was the Bishop of Truro[1] from 1990 to 1997.

Ball was educated at Lancing College and Queens' College, Cambridge. He was a teacher of biology and chemistry at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire [2] and was then head of the lower school until 1975. He was chaplain of Sussex University 1976 to 1980, suffragan Bishop of Jarrow from 1980 to 1990 and then the 13th Bishop of Truro. He was the first bishop there to ordain women.[1]

In 1960 Ball founded a monastic community at Stratford Park in Stroud, along with his identical twin brother Peter Ball, who later became suffragan Bishop of Lewes (1977 - 1992) and then Bishop of Gloucester (1992–1993).

Ball is the author of Foolish Risks of God, a Lenten study course on the parables of the New Testament (Mowbray Lent Book, ISBN 0-8264-6395-9) published in 2002. In the book's introduction he writes of the parables,

"The deepest problems of the universe are hidden in their simplicity, whether it be free will and choice, reward and punishment, or justice and mercy, power and powerlessness, and in most cases Jesus has complete confidence in our ability to understand their significance for ourselves, despite what the Gospel writers and preachers ever since have tried to do with them. They are not commandments for behaviour, though they may gently persuade; neither are they black and white morsels of theology. They are signposts to God and guides to living and loving."

References

  1. ^ a b Truro Cathedral website
  2. ^ Museum in the Park, Stroud
Religious titles
Preceded by
Alexander Kenneth Hamilton		 Bishop of Jarrow
1980–1990		 Succeeded by
Alan Smithson
Preceded by
Peter Mumford		 Bishop of Truro
1990–1997		 Succeeded by
William Ind
v · d · eBishops of Jarrow

George Nickson • John Quirk • Samuel Knight • James Gordon • Leslie Owen • David Dunlop • John Ramsbotham • Mervyn Armstrong • Alexander Hamilton • Michael Ball • Alan Smithson • John Pritchard • Mark Bryant
v · d · eBishops of Truro

Edward Benson • George Wilkinson • John Gott • Charles Stubbs • Winfrid Burrows • Guy Warman • Walter Frere • Joseph Hunkin • Edmund Morgan • Maurice Key • Graham Leonard • Peter Mumford • Michael Ball • Bill Ind • Tim Thornton


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