Our Patrons

Our Patrons

 

The Baroness Cox of Queensbury

 

The Baroness Cox of Queensbury was created a Life Peer in 1982 and was a deputy speaker of the House of Lords from 1985 to 2005. She was Founder Chancellor of Bournemouth University, 1991- 2001; Founder Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University 2006-2013 and is an Honorary Vice President of the Royal College of Nursing. She is heavily involved with international humanitarian work. She is Chief Executive of HART (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust). She was also a founder Trustee of MERLIN (Medical Emergency Relief International). Lady Cox has been honoured with the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland; the Wilberforce Award; the International Mother Teresa Award from the All India Christian Council; the Mkhitar Gosh Medal conferred by the President of the Republic of Armenia; and the anniversary medal presented by Lech Walesa, the former President of Poland. She has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Honorary Doctorates by universities in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, and Armenia. Author of numerous books, Baroness Cox’s humanitarian aid work takes her on many missions to conflict and post-conflict zones, including the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh; Sudan; South Sudan; Nigeria; Uganda; the Karen, Karenni, Shan, Chin and Kachin peoples in the jungles of Burma; and communities suffering from conflict in Indonesia, where she helped to establish the International Islamic Christian Organisation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction (IICORR) with the late former President Abdurrhaman Wahid. She has visited North Korea helping to promote Parliamentary initiatives and medical programmes. She has also been instrumental in helping to change the former Soviet Union’s policies for orphaned and abandoned children from institutional to foster family care.

 

 

Monsignor Dr Michael Nazir Ali

 

General

Monsignor Dr Michael Nazir-Ali  is now a member of the Ordinariate in the Catholic Church and Prelate to the Holy See. He was the 106th Anglican Bishop of Rochester, for 15 years, until 1 September 2009. He is originally from Asia and was the first Diocesan Bishop in the Church of England born abroad. He was appointed in 1994. Before that he was the General Secretary of CMS from 1989-1994 and before that Bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan. He holds both British and Pakistani citizenship and from 1999 was a member of the House of Lords where he was active in a number of areas of national and international concern. He has both a Christian and a Muslim family background. He is now President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue (OXTRAD).

 

Education

Michael’s secondary and college education was in Pakistan at St Paul’s High School and St Patrick’s college. He read Economics, Sociology and Islamic History at the University of Karachi, and Theology at Fitzwilliam College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. His interests have led him to research and study in several fields, including comparative literature, comparative philosophy of religion and theology at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and elsewhere. He has taught at colleges and universities in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He is an Hon. Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford and of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He is visiting Professor of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Greenwich and was Senior Fellow of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He was also on the faculties of the London School of Theology, the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and the Lahore College of Theology. He is a Professor of Theology at the Pontifical University of St Thomas(The Angelicum in Rome).

 

Work

In Pakistan, Michael taught at Karachi Theological College, worked as a parish priest in a poor urban area, became Provost of Lahore Cathedral and was consecrated the first Bishop of Raiwind. In 1986 he was appointed to assist with the planning and preparation for the 1988 Lambeth Conference, and so joined the staff of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Britain. He was the editor of the Report and the Pastoral Letters of the 1988 Lambeth Conference. Michael has served as a director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, was on the board of Christian Aid and was a trustee of Traidcraft. He was a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and Chair of its Ethics and Law Committee 1997 – 2003. He led the dialogue with Al-Azhar, is a founder member of the Dialogue of Scholars and was President of the Network for Inter-Faith Concerns in the Anglican Communion (NIFCON), as well as having been a member of a number of committees including: Theological Consultant to the Crown Appointments Review Group from 1998 – 2001; Secretary to the Archbishop’s Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate (the Eames’ Commission); Chairman of the Mission Theology Advisory Group of the Board of Mission (1992-2001); Member of ARCIC-II (the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission); Member of the Archbishops’ Council; Member of the House of Bishops’ Standing Committee; Member of the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission; Chairman of Working Party on Women in the Episcopate (The Rochester Commission); Chairman of the House of Bishops Theological Group; Chairman of Council, Trinity College, Bristol. Michael has been a visiting lecturer in a number of universities and colleges in the UK, Canada, the USA and Australia. He has travelled widely in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America. He is the author of thirteen books and of numerous articles on Faith and Public Life, Freedom of Belief, Bioethics, Mission, Ecumenism, the Anglican Communion, and relations with people of other faiths (particularly Islam). In 2005, he was awarded the Paul Harris Fellowship by Rotary International. He has also been awarded the Shaikh Yamani Gold Medal in Islamic Studies.

 

Family

Michael is married to Valerie, and they have two sons, Shammy (Shamaoun), and Ross.

 

Interests and hobbies

His interests other than theology are; cricket, hockey, table tennis, scrabble, listening to music and watching television. He enjoys reading humour and detective fiction, and poetry. He writes poetry in English and Persian and has had his work periodically published since he was at school.

 

 

Rev. Dr Clifford Hill

 

Rev. Dr Clifford Hill MA, BD, PhD, sociologist and theologian, is a lecturer, preacher and broadcaster who has written over forty books. He was a senior lecturer in sociology at London University and lectured for the Home Office to senior police officers and prison governors on race and community issues. In 1983 he led the research team for the Parliamentary Enquiry into ‘video nasties’, subsequently chairing and overseeing reports from the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group and was their convenor for more than 25 years. He is an ordained minister in the Congregational Church, leading multi-ethnic congregations in London over many years, and continues to be editor-in-chief of Prophecy Today UK, the online successor to the magazine of that name which seeks to apply God’s word in the bible to current affairs, and was a joint director of Issachar Ministries with his wife, Monica.

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Monica Hill*

 

Monica Hill was actively involved in education and community development. Following practical experience in the East End she was a founding member and first Director of the British Church Growth Association for more than 23 years. She then concentrated on working with her husband Clifford both in the parliamentary work and in the Centre for Contemporary Ministry and became the Executive Director of Issachar Ministries. She also wrote a number of books.

*1935-2024