Kirk, Kenneth Escott

(Feb. 21, 1866-June 8, 1954). A moral philosopher, he became Bishop of Oxford in 1937. The study of moral theology, which had been neglected after the seventeenth century in England, was revived by three pioneering works of Kirk: Some Principles of Moral Theology (1920), Ignorance, Faith and Conformity (1925), and Conscience and its Problems (1927). His monumental and enduring work came out of his 1928 Bampton Lectures, published in 1931 as The Vision of God. Kirk also wrote theological essays and contributed to Essays Catholic and Critical (1926) and Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation (1928). He was an able administrator and a skillful pastor. During his episcopate he was able to integrate several English religious communities into the general life of the Church of England. He was known as an Anglo-catholic, but he was trusted by both Anglo-catholics and evangelicals in the church.