C. H. Nash
{{Short description|English-Australian clergyman}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Clifford Harris Nash (16 December 1866 – 27 September 1958) was an English-Australian clergyman who became the founding principal of the Melbourne Bible Institute (now the Melbourne School of Theology). According to Darrel Paproth, he "dominated evangelicalism in Melbourne between the wars."{{cite book |last1=Paproth |first1=Darrell |title=Failure is Not Final: A Life of C. H. Nash |date=1997 |publisher=Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity |page=4}}
Education and initial ministry
Nash was born in Brixton and educated at Oundle School, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Ridley Hall.{{cite AuDB
| first = B. B.
| last = Darling
| author-link =
| title = Nash, Clifford Harris (1866–1958)
| volume = 10
| year = 1986
| id2 = nash-clifford-harris-7726
| access-date = 26 April 2020
}} At Corpus Christ he became an evangelical Anglican and was particularly influenced by Brooke Foss Westcott.Paproth, Failure is Not Final, p. 18. Nash taught at the Loretto School before being ordained a priest in 1893. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, "two years later Nash's promising career was curtailed because it was alleged that while engaged to his vicar's daughter he had made advances to her younger sister." He subsequently emigrated to Australia and worked in Tasmania for two years before resuming his ministry in Sydney. He was relicensed by Bishop Saumarez Smith and spent two years there before moving to Victoria in 1900.
Controversy in Victoria
Nash was vicar of St. Columb's Anglican Church, Hawthorn, from 1900 to 1906. He was popular and successful, and appeared on his way to becoming a bishop: he was made canon of St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne in 1903, and in 1906 was on the short list to become the second Bishop of Bendigo.Paproth, Failure is Not Final, p. 216. He accepted the incumbency at Christ Church, Geelong in 1906, but the following year disaster struck: Nash was forced by Archbishop Lowther Clarke to resign due to another indiscretion with a female parishioner, this time at Hawthorn. Wei-Han Kuan notes, however, that "Nash's evangelical supporters were vocal, active, and sustained in support of him."{{cite book |last1=Kuan |first1=Wei-Han |title=Foundations of Anglican Evangelicalism in Victoria: Four Elements for Continuity, 1847-1937 |date=2019 |publisher=Wipf and Stock |page=209 |isbn=9781532682162 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CfGaDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT209 |accessdate=28 April 2020}} Paproth suggests the sour relationship between Nash and Clarke reflected the division in the diocese between evangelicals and non-evangelicals.Paproth, Failure is Not Final, p. 68.
In 1908, Nash was relicensed by Bishop Arthur Pain of Gippsland and became rector of St Paul's, Sale, and archdeacon of Gippsland. In 1909 John Norton wrote a newspaper article attacking Clarke for his role in the affair, but the publicity from a subsequent libel case forced Nash to resign from the Anglican Church in 1912. (He was relicensed by Clarke's successor, Harrington Lees, in 1926.)
Melbourne Bible Institute
Nash ran his own school (called Ashwick School) from 1913 to 1915, and pastored Prahran Independent Church (which belonged to the Congregational Union of Australia) from 1915 to 1920. He then started the Melbourne Bible Institute and remained principal there until his retirement in 1942. Nash also taught at the City Men's Bible Class, where he "gathered and energized an incredibly influential group of evangelical Melbourne businessmen."Kuan, Foundations of Anglican Evangelicalism in Victoria, p. 191. This group included his close friend Lee Neil, who was "the prime mover behind the founding of MBI as a necessary institution for the training of overseas missionaries and as an appropriate avenue for the deployment of the exiled Nash's gifts."Kuan, Foundations of Anglican Evangelicalism in Victoria, p. 219.
Personal life
Works
- Christ Interpreted (1940)
- The Fourfold Interpretation of Jesus Christ (1946)
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nash, C. H.}}
Category:People educated at Oundle School
Category:Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Category:Alumni of Ridley Hall, Cambridge
Category:English emigrants to colonial Australia
Category:20th-century Australian Anglican priests
Category:Anglican archdeacons in Australia
Category:Evangelical Anglican clergy