One could question the need for a president of Crosslinks. If the staff and mission partners are answerable to the General Council, and the General Council are answerable to the members of Crosslinks, what role does a president have?

One might also argue that if that president has the pedigree of Chris Wright then you don’t need a reason. More pragmatically, the role of the Crosslinks resident, although honorary, reflects a theological standard for the agency. Chris Wright is fast becoming one of the most respected names in mission across the world, and his roots in Crosslinks go deep.

Chris was born in Belfast in 1947 of Christian parents who themselves had spent time as mission partners in Brazil. He grew up in an evangelical Presbyterian church and, as he says, “My spiritual and doctrinal roots remain in the Reformed confessional soil. I remember giving my life to Jesus in a very simple way when I was six, with my elder brother’s encouragement. We went to Berry Street Presbyterian Church, where Rev Glyn Owen was the minister. I benefited enormously from weekly soakings in his biblical teaching throughout my teenage and student years.” It was there that he met his-wife-to-be Liz. “We both sang in the choir! Then we got involved in youth work together, and after a fairly long courtship we married in 1970.” Chris was confirmed into the Anglican Church in 1972, while at Cambridge studying Old Testament economic ethics. After achieving his doctorate he was ordained and served a curacy in the parish church of St Peter and St Paul, Tonbridge.

Mission flows through Chris’ blood: in 1982 he and his young family applied to work with Crosslinks (then BCMS) in India. Problems getting visas meant that they had to wait a whole year before they could go. It was a difficult time for the family. While they were waiting, All Nations Christian College gave Chris a job as a tutor and Old Testament lecturer. ANCC (as it is known) is an international training centre for cross-cultural mission. Teaching at ANCC marked the beginning of a very long working partnership for Chris. 

Eventually, the family did go to India, and in 1983 Chris began lecturing at the Union Biblical Seminary, Pune. “Our five years there were challenging, stretching, and enriching in many ways. I was teaching almost all of the Old Testament courses at BD level, and then a group at MTh level after that.” Some of his students went on for further training in the UK and the USA and have become recognised and respected theologians themselves. He has left his mark of theological teaching in India. Some of those Chris taught have since gone on to be Langham Scholars, and are now back in India in theological education and leadership.

When the Wrights returned to England in 1988, Chris was made director of studies at ANCC, then in 1993 appointed as its principal. “I continued to teach and shared a tutorial group, but a large amount of the work was administrative. Providing leadership, vision, pastoral oversight and management for an international community of 180 students and 40 staff was sometimes wearing but immensely fulfilling.”

Chris is committed to Christ, to mission, to the church in the non-Western world, and to biblical teaching. He has written many books on the Old Testament and evangelism, contributed to the Grove Books series on ethics, has published articles in the leading journals of theology, and through his writing has added scripture-based insights to the inter-faith dialogue and the theology of mission. He has been a regular contributor to the Crosslinks magazine.

In 2001 Chris was asked to be the next international ministries director of the Langham Partnership International; this is a network for the furthering of John Stott’s vision for biblical preaching and scholarship. It has programmes of literature distribution, doctrinal scholarships, and preaching seminars. Bible teacher, author, and rector emeritus at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, John Stott said “There is nobody to whom I would rather hand over leadership of the Langham Partnership than Chris.” Chris continues to develop his ministry of teaching, preaching and writing in relation to the churches of the Majority World and their mission.

In the course of his wider work Chris has worshipped and preached in many different denominations and readily admits his appreciation of the wider range of confessional stances and styles of worship. “I am a convinced evangelical. Evangelicalism as an ecclesiastical and cultural phenomenon must be as semper reformanda (always subject to reform) in the light of Scripture as the rest of the church. This may also reflect that I am a biblical, rather than a systematic, theologian.”

And as honorary president his reflections continue to mirror Crosslinks’ own convictions of unyielding biblical truth.

Crosslinks magazine August 2003 index