Richard Hanson (bishop)

{{Short description|Irish bishop}}

{{other people|Richard Hanson|Richard Hanson (disambiguation)}}

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{{More citations needed|date=April 2011}}

Richard Patrick Crosland Hanson, FBA, MRIA (1916–1988) was bishop of Clogher in the Church of Ireland from 1970 to 1973. A historian of antiquity (he claimed to distrust history written concerning periods subsequent to 600 AD) he was particularly noted for a life of St. Patrick. He discovered that ecumenical work was particularly restricted in the context of the Troubles in a diocese lying on both sides of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which he accordingly resigned to take up a professorship in Systematic Theology in the Faculty of Theology at Manchester University. During this period he worked notably on the evolution of Christian theology in the period between (and immediately prior to) the Councils of Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD) He was the first British or Irish contributor to the Sources Chrétiennes collection of early Christian writings.

Among his writings was Reasonable Belief, which was written jointly with his brother, Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, a Professor of Theology at Hull University. In the introduction he notes "One of the authors is an Anglican priest and the other an Anglican bishop, and neither can jump out of his skin" and "It should perhaps be explained that this book is not only a collaboration between two Anglican theologians but between two identical twin brothers."{{Cite book |last1=Hanson |first1=Anthony Tyrrell |title=Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith |last2=Hanson |first2=Richard Patrick Crosland |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1980 |isbn=9780192132383 |pages=x-xi}}

First published in the year of his death (1988), his book, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381,{{Cite book |last1=Hanson |first1=Richard Patrick Crosland |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tclFM-nRh2IC |title=The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381 AD |date=2005-01-01 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-0-567-03092-4 |language=en}} is still considered by many scholars to be the finest work on the Arian Controversy. Rowan Williams described it as an indispensable tool for future researchers and stated that there is nothing else in English of comparable scope.{{Cite journal|last=Williams|first=Rowan|date=February 1992|title=R. P. C. Hanson's Search for the Christian Doctrine of God1|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/scottish-journal-of-theology/article/abs/r-p-c-hansons-search-for-the-christian-doctrine-of-god1/BD392F0E45DFA13BDCF5360C4D0B847A#access-block|journal=Scottish Journal of Theology|language=en|volume=45|issue=1|pages=101–112|doi=10.1017/S003693060003893X|s2cid=170308863 |issn=1475-3065|url-access=subscription}} Trevor A. Hart, lecturer in Systematic Theology in the University of Aberdeen, described it as the distillation of some twenty years' careful research and also stated that nothing comparable exists in either scale or erudition in the English language.{{Cite journal |last=Hart |first=Trevor A. |date=April–June 1992 |title=R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: a Review Essay |url=https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/1992-2_155.pdf |journal=The Evangelical Quarterly |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=155–164 |doi=10.1163/27725472-06402004 |s2cid=96977 |access-date=2023-10-22}} Kevin Giles refers to this book as Hanson’s “definitive book on Arianism”.{{Cite journal |last=Giles |first=Kevin |date=Summer 2004 |title=The Doctrine of the Trinity and Subordination |url=https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/doctrine-trinity-and-subordination/ |journal=Priscilla Papers |volume=18 |issue=3}}