Nicholas Lash

Lash served in the Royal Engineers from 1951 to 1957.{{cite web |title=Lash, Prof. Nicholas Langrishe Alleyne |url=https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-23842 |website=Who's Who 2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=4 September 2020 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U23842 |date=1 December 2019|isbn=978-0-19-954088-4 }} He was commissioned in the British Army on 10 January 1953 as a second lieutenant, as part of his national service.{{London Gazette |issue= 39783 |date= 20 February 1953 |page= 1085 |supp= |y}}

On 1 October 1954, he was promoted to lieutenant and moved to a short-service commission, allowing him to continue his army career.{{London Gazette |issue= 40314 |date= 29 October 1954 |page= 6182 |supp= |y}} He was moved to the Regular Army Reserve of Officers on 29 August 1957, thereby ending his military service.{{London Gazette |issue= 41167 |date= 3 September 1957 |page= 5216 |supp= |y}}

He studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood at St Mary's College, Oscott, between 1957 and 1963. After being ordained, he worked as an assistant priest in Slough. In 1969, he was elected a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, the only college of the University of Cambridge whose college chapel is Roman Catholic. From 1971 to 1975, he served as Dean of St Edmund's.{{cite web|url=https://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/news/nicholas-lash-rip |title=Nicholas Lash, RIP |publisher=St Edmund's College Cambridge| date=July 15, 2020|access-date=July 23, 2020}} In 1975, he left the priesthood and became a lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge.{{cite web|url=https://www.rcdea.org.uk/a-tribute-to-cambridge-professor-nicholas-lash/ |title=A tribute to Cambridge professor Nicholas Lash |publisher=Diocese of East Anglia |date=July 16, 2020|access-date=July 23, 2020}} From 1978 to 1999, he held the post of Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nicholas-lash|title=Nicholas Lash|publisher=guardian.co.uk|access-date=25 December 2010|location=London|date=29 January 2009}} at the University of Cambridge, succeeding Donald MacKinnon and being succeeded by Denys Turner.

Nicholas Lash was the author of numerous theological books and was a regular contributor to The Tablet.{{cite web|url=http://www.thetablet.co.uk/search.php?q=Nicholas+Lash&type=all|title=Search: Nicholas Lash|publisher=The Tablet|access-date=25 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507003437/http://www.thetablet.co.uk/search.php?q=Nicholas+Lash&type=all|archive-date=7 May 2018|url-status=dead}} A Roman Catholic and considered a liberal, Lash voiced strong but measured criticism of practices among leading figures in his tradition, arguing for open debate on a variety of topics, including the ordination of women.

He was reportedly one of the few Catholic theologians to have read the whole of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics and the whole of Karl Rahner's Theological Investigations. One of Lash's strongest intellectual influences seems to have been the recovery of Aquinas's theology, using forms of philosophical argument influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, which became influential in the 1970s, associated with Cornelius Ernst and Fergus Kerr. Arguably his most significant piece of writing was also one of his shortest, his reflections on the Apostles' Creed, which includes discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

He helped organize the 1973 symposium at Maynooth on Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology.

Lash was born to Joan Mary Moore, a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, and Brigadier Henry Alleyne Lash, an officer in the British Indian Army. He had an elder brother, Father Ephrem Lash ({{ne|Christopher John Alleyne Lash}}; 3 December 1930 – 15 March 2016), who became an Eastern Orthodox archimandrite and prominent translator of patristic and liturgical texts. Nicholas also had two sisters: the artist and novelist Susannah Lash and the writer Jini Fiennes. The latter had seven children, including actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, filmmakers Sophie and Martha Fiennes, conservationist Jacob Fiennes, and musician Magnus Fiennes.

Lash was educated at Worth Preparatory School (Jan 1945 – July 1947) and Downside School (Sep 1947 – Dec 1950).

After leaving the priesthood, Lash married Janet in 1976. Together, they had a son, Dominic.

His books include

• His Presence in the World: A Study in Eucharistic Worship and Theology (1968)
• Change in Focus: A Study of Doctrinal Change and Continuity (1973)
• Newman on Development: The Search for an Explanation in History (1975)
• Voices of Authority (1976)
• Theology on Dover Beach (1979)
• A Matter of Hope: A Theologian's Reflections on the Thought of Karl Marx (1981)
• Theology on the Way to Emmaus (1986)
• Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (1988)
• Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the Apostles' Creed (1992)
• The Beginning and the End of 'Religion' (1996)
• Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God (2004)

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• [https://www.ixtheo.de/Author/Home?author=Lash%2C+Nicholas+1934- Articles by Nicholas Lash] in Index Theologicus

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Category:1934 births

Category:2020 deaths

Category:20th-century British Roman Catholic theologians

Category:20th-century English Roman Catholic priests

Category:20th-century English theologians

Category:English people of Irish descent

Category:Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge

Category:Fellows of St Edmund's College, Cambridge

Category:Laicized Roman Catholic priests

Category:Royal Engineers officers

Category:Norris–Hulse Professors of Divinity

Category:Ordination of women and the Catholic Church