Ernest William Barnes

1874-1953. Bishop of Birmingham. Educated as a scientist at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was ordained in 1902 and lectured at Trinity in mathematics. He became master of the Temple in 1915, canon of Westminster in 1918, bishop of Birmingham in 1924. He wrote various papers on mathematics, but is chiefly remembered as a prominent modernist with views that included serious questioning of the historic Christian faith on matters such as the virgin birth and the Resurrection, on one occasion provoking criticism from Archbishop Fisher in public. A consistent pacifist with a horror of atomic weapons, Barnes was also a writer; his two main works were Should such a Faith offend? (1928) and Scientific Theory and Religion (1933).