Michael Green: By His Friends: An Authorized Biography

By IVP

This is a portrait of the Revd Dr. Michael Green who died in January 2019 (aged 88). Michael was a leading evangelist and theologian, who wrote over 50 books, and spoke at thousands of evangelistic events over a long and respected career.

The book will tell the story of his life and ministry through the recollections of his family, friends and colleagues. It will seek to inspire and educate a new generation of evangelists.

This collection of articles will narrate his formative years through service in the military, his call to ministry and theological development. It will offer pen portraits of Michael as as theological educator, an innovative leader and of his contribution to the breadth of evangelicalism and the Church of England.

It will feature contributions from well-known Christians and receive endorsement from his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IVP
• Release date: Sep 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789741155

Book preview

Part 1

THE FORMATIVE YEARS

1

School years

1937–49

JANE STACEY AND BOB HYATT

Memories of Michael’s prep-school days (1937–44)

Jane Stacey (Michael’s cousin)

My father had five elder brothers, of whom Michael’s father, Ted (also my godfather), was one. The family grew up in Llywel Vicarage near Brecon. Three brothers went into the church and Ted became Vicar of Shenington, near Banbury.

My father, Fred Green, in 1927, after several years of teaching at Northampton Grammar School, became owner and headmaster of a boys’ preparatory school, Montpelier, situated in Torbay, between Paignton and Torquay. In 1938, when Michael was eight, my father offered to educate him at Montpelier School and to have him as a boarder.

The Montpelier building had previously belonged to the Singer family (of sewing machine fame). The number of boys increased dramatically during the Second World War, as Torbay was considered an area safe from German bombing. There were about seventy boarders and 120 day boys. I was also educated there.

My father believed in giving the boys as broad an education as possible. The school day started with an assembly in the hall, with hymns and prayers. This was followed by lessons, and sports in the afternoon. (There was a keen emphasis on sports, particularly cricket, rugby and athletics.) The boys worked hard during the day, and time in the evenings was given to developing hobbies such as woodwork, basket work, chess and rifle shooting. At the beginning of the war, each school house took up knitting for the armed forces, and some boys became very good knitters!

Even though the school was in Torbay, we were not able to go down to the beach to swim as it was considered too dangerous. The beach had many anti-tank structures and barbed wire, and people feared machine-gunning from German tip-and-run raids. Swimming lessons took place in the Torquay swimming baths where the annual swimming competitions were held.

The school had a flourishing Cub pack and Scout troop, but sadly the traditional Cub and Scout holiday camps had to be curtailed during the war due to petrol rationing and lack of transport.

If the air raid siren sounded during the night, the boarders were all taken down to the very spacious cellars, where my mother would dispense mugs of hot chocolate.

On Saturday evenings the boarders participated in debates or watched cine films on nature, or silent comedy, or films taken of school life. On Sundays they went to the local church, Christ Church, Paignton. Sunday afternoons were spent walking in the countryside. Sunday evening always had a quiet reading hour when the boys were encouraged to choose books from the well-stocked library.

In 1939 many of the teaching staff left as they were called up into the forces. The staff was then comprised of teachers who were too old to be enlisted, or those who were brought out of retirement.

My father was keen that as many boys as possible achieve scholarships to their chosen secondary schools, and there was always a small class of boys who learned Latin and Greek to this end. Michael was in this class in his final year, and gained a scholarship to Clifton College in Bristol. But I do remember my father having trouble persuading Michael of the benefits of hard work!

I was three years younger than Michael, which, at a prep school, is a considerable gap. My recollection of him there is sparse. However, extracts from ‘old boy’ magazines illustrate his involvement in various school activities.

Extracts from Montpelier School magazines (1938–44)

1938–9

‘Alice in Wonderland’ (Junior Play – Miss Davies)

The scene on the seashore was good. E. M. B. Green, as the Mock Turtle, was most lugubrious and his description of education under water was well done. He was sometimes tempted to let his sorrow turn to mirth. The mournful note is not an easy one for a small boy to sustain. He was well supported by G. B. Bonds as the Gryphon and the two of them danced the Lobster Quadrille with solemn earnestness.

1940–1

Cubbing

E. M. B. Green, our Senior Sixer, and M. J. S. Norman are to be commended for their excellent work throughout the year and for their valuable help which they have been willing to give always to younger members of the Pack.

(Michael was known as ‘Athlete’ in the pack.)

1942–3

Debating Society

E. M. B. Green debated on the ‘Suppression of Vivisection’.

Recreational Drama classes

E. M. B. Green played Sir Toby in Henry V.

Scouting

Badges for ‘Athlete’; ‘Cyclist’; ‘Entertainer’; ‘Friend to Animals’; ‘Interpreter’.

1943–4

Recreational Drama (direction of Miss Hodgson)

As You Like It. Actors were word perfect and the acting was well up to standard. E. M. B. Green’s ‘Orlando’ to be cited as one for special mention.

Scouting

Badges for ‘Marksman’; ‘Master at Arms’; ‘Stalker’.

Scholarship

Clifton College

Schooldays at Clifton College, Bristol (1944–9)

Bob Hyatt

I first met Michael in Wiseman’s House at Clifton College. The college was founded in 1862 ‘for the education of the sons of gentlemen who were members of the Church of England’.

¹

Sir Henry Newbolt, the poet, who was born in the same year that the school was founded and was a pupil at the school, wrote of ‘the certainty that Clifton by her natural destiny must become one of the greatest of English schools’, and that is how we thought of it! It was situated in Clifton, a beautiful suburb of Bristol, next to Bristol Zoo and very near a large public park called The Downs, where in 1864 Brunel built his famous suspension bridge across the Avon gorge. The school had substantial Victorian buildings and beautiful sports grounds with the green copper roof of the chapel crowning them all.

Most of the boys were boarders, accommodated in houses of about fifty boys in neighbouring streets. There were also two houses of day boys, each with their own common rooms.

Every day began with a school chapel service, and each boarding house had evening assemblies where prayers were said by housemasters or house tutors. Most of the religion was very formal and those of us who were Christians did not find it easy to worship God in them.

Michael was four years older than me, and in my first term I heard that a remarkable change had taken place in his life. The other boys, who had known him longer than I, had said that when he came to the school he swore and behaved just like the rest of them, and that they could not believe or accept the difference in him. Certainly the boy I knew was different from others. He was enthusiastic, dynamic, determined, dedicated to Christ and devoted to sharing Christ with others. He used all of his considerable talents of mind and body for everything he did: academic work, sport (particularly fencing, cricket and rifle shooting) and in contributing to the life of the house and the school. I cannot say that he was popular, but he was much respected. I admired him and as time went on came to know him as a friend and to be very grateful to him and to God for all that he did for me and in the service of our Lord.

After my first term he was made head boy of the house and I became Michael’s servant (called a ‘fag’). In those days at public schools there was a system in which junior boys were allotted to house prefects (we called them ‘house sixths’) as their servants. They had to do any small job that they were asked. My main jobs were to clean his shoes and to ‘blanco’ and ‘brasso’ his Army Corps uniform belt and gaiters, for which he was always grateful.

Michael asked a boy whom I admired as a good boxer (something I was aspiring to be) to invite me to a boys’ camp, where they played lots of games and held prayers, morning and evening. He did not want to invite me himself, because of his position of authority, and for fear of making me do something I did not want to do. I am sure Michael was praying for me, and when my parents gave permission I applied to go to camp that Easter. So in the next school holiday I went to Clayesmore School in Iwerne Minster, the location of the Varsity and Public School camps (VPS) sponsored by Scripture Union.

I was greatly impressed by the friendliness of the ‘officers’ and all the boys. I had never met people like this! So when it came to listening to the talks and joining in singing choruses, I entered in wholeheartedly. The talks were really easy to understand, using lots of good illustrations, and they spoke to my mind and heart. They covered various topics: who Jesus was; the sin that spoils our lives and the world; the meaning of the cross; the cost of discipleship; the way to become a Christian; going on with Christ; Bible reading and prayer; living the Christian life, and so on. When I saw the leader illustrate Revelation 3:20 with Holman Hunt’s picture of Christ knocking at the door of someone’s life, I knew that was what he was doing to me, and I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Saviour and accepted him as my Lord.

Michael had become a Christian at this camp in his first year at the school, and I realized that it was Christ who had made the difference to his life. At least four of the ten school prefects (‘praepostors’) – Richard Gorrie, Julian Charley, Michael Green and Alan Fairhurst – had all become Christians through these camps and they all went on to be ordained in the Church of England.

The founder and leader of the camps, the Revd E. J. H. Nash, commonly known as ‘Bash’, was mightily used by God. He either won or nurtured in their faith many who became leaders in the church, including John Stott, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Michael Green, John Collins, David Sheppard, Michael Whinney and David Watson.

Michael encouraged me to go to a Christian meeting during the school term on Sunday afternoons, at which camp officers and others gave helpful talks. It was held in the home of Professor Rendle Short, not far from the school, and later transferred to the sitting room of Peter Brook, school chaplain and housemaster in Wiseman’s House, where Michael and I were. Michael left school and went on to Oxford University in 1949, and I left in 1953. We saw each other at the camps at Iwerne Minster in the holidays. Michael became a camp officer and I remember his giving inspiring talks. In God’s providence we were then to meet in the army.

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The Gunpowder Plot and other escapades

Maurice Turner

(Maurice was an exact contemporary of Michael at Clifton College; his memories were recorded by his son Steve in March 2019.)

There was heavy bombing in Bristol early on in the war, and Clifton College was targeted, so the school had to move from its prestigious site in the city to Bude in Cornwall, where it occupied a collection of seaside boarding houses, a café and a hotel. Bedrooms were converted to dormitories, reception rooms to classrooms, and the café to a dining room. Life continued much as before, and the school maintained its excellent exam results; however, teaching science was more of a challenge as equipment had not been relocated, so facilities were shared with local schools after hours.

The ever-creative Michael Green and I created a new challenge for ourselves: how to make our own bombs. I had some experience of this from my prep school and egged Michael on. We set to work on the gunpowder, mixing the needed proportions of sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate. ‘It’s quite safe in this form,’ I assured Michael. ‘It needs a fuse to detonate it!’ We made the fuses out of string soaked in a potassium nitrate solution and allowed them to dry. Then we stuffed our home-made gunpowder into lead pipes, inserted the fuse, squashed the ends of the pipe flat and stuck the result in the mud. We took it in turns to light the fuse, running smartly to a safe distance to admire the result. It’s astonishing that we got away with this, but there was a war on.

When the war ended, the school returned to Bristol. More science experiments took place in the dormitory, where I short-circuited the light switch by connecting it across two nails hammered into the door frame. A piece of an old tin, nailed to the top of the door itself, completed the circuit. ‘It’s quite safe,’ I assured Michael, ‘as long as you don’t touch anything metal!’ The patrolling prefect saw the light under the door and opened it, but the light was then off and all was quiet; puzzling.

One day Michael and I woke to a blanket of snow, and thoughts of sledging filled our minds. Gathering wood and nails, we set to work in the dormitory after ‘lights out’. The sawing and hammering attracted the prefect once again. He opened the door, entered the workshop and, alas, shut it again once inside. The scene of the crime was bathed in bright light and we were brought to justice. But, would you believe, while I was being slippered, Michael, not wanting to miss any time the next day on the slopes, picked up the hammer and continued construction. His ‘redeeming the time’ led to a double slippering.

²

Michael and I were both committed Christians at school. We had both come to faith at Bash’s Iwerne Minster camps. Back at school, we continued to supplement college chapel by attending the Christian Union, which was an Iwerne Minster plant, set up by some of the staff.

Michael went up to Oxford and I to Cambridge. We remained close friends, and in 1956 he was best man at my wedding.

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2

Army years

1953–5

BOB HYATT

Michael and I both had to do our compulsory national service in the armed forces so that the UK could honour its international commitments in Korea, Malaya, Germany and elsewhere. Every man between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one had to serve for two years. Some could get deferment but would have to go later. Michael had obtained deferment to go to university, which is how we both began our national service at the same time.

Both of us were told to report to the same camp in Oswestry on the same day, and were put into the same barrack room. It was one of God’s wonderful coincidences. The barrack room contained about twenty beds and there was one double bunk-bed at the end of the room, which no-one seemed to want, so Michael and I chose that. The first night he said to me, ‘Now we must nail our colours to the mast. Let’s kneel by the bedside to pray.’ And so we did. There were a few ribald remarks, some laughter, and a boot was thrown. It missed! It was amazing how that act aroused much interest and opened up many useful conversations. Some of the men became Christians, and one went on to become a bishop. I am sure that the stand Michael helped me to make as we knelt to pray shaped my life more than I could ever imagine at that time.

One day we were in line for breakfast when a rather scruffy individual approached us and introduced himself as ‘Billy Jones, a fighter for the Lord’. He was a professional boxer and had been converted. He told us that he was taking part in some open-air preaching at the weekend and asked us to join him. So that Saturday we met up with Billy and a Salvation Army officer and found ourselves in the middle of Oswestry with traffic swirling around us, preaching to the cars and a few people who lingered for a moment out of curiosity. We prayed that it was a good witness.

After two weeks, we were all posted to other units. Michael went to another one in Oswestry and I was sent to north Wales.

We met up again about ten weeks later at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot. At that time, Billy Graham was holding his first major crusade in England at the Harringay Arena in London. So Michael gathered up a number of others and we took the train to join the huge crowds that gathered to hear Billy. It was wonderful to hear the gospel preached with such power, to join in singing great hymns, some of which I had never heard before, and to see hundreds of people surge forward in response to Christ to be counselled. There was such joy in those gatherings and it flowed over into the streets outside. I can still see Michael on the crowded tube train leaving Harringay, clinging to a ceiling strap and joining in the singing of ‘Great is thy faithfulness’ and ‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine’ as a wave of spontaneous joyful praise swept through the