Peter Toon

Peter Toon
Peter Toon
Born	1939; Yorkshire, England
Died	25 April 2009 (aged 69–70); San Diego, California, United States
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Anglican priest, theologian and professor
Known for	Books and teachings on theology

Peter Toon (1939 – 25 April 2009) was a priest and theologian and an international advocate of traditional Anglicanism.

Early life and education

Toon was born to Thomas Arthur and Hilda Toon in Yorkshire, England, in 1939. His younger siblings were Paul, David and Christine.

He attended and graduated from the following schools and colleges:

Hemsworth Grammar School, near Wakefield
, Yorkshire

Cliff College, near Sheffield
King's College London (Bachelor of Divinity with upper second-class honours)^[1]
University of Liverpool
Christ Church, Oxford (DPhil)

Career

After an earlier career as a college lecturer in religious studies, Toon was ordained

Oak Hill Theological College in London, training ordinands, and then from 1982 Director of Post-Ordination Training in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in East Anglia. He returned briefly to parish ministry (Staindrop, County Durham) before moving to the United States of America in 1991. In the last decade of his working life, he served as President and CEO of the Prayer Book Society of the USA, and his life and work were centred in America, although he did return briefly to England, and was for four years the priest-in-charge of the villages of Biddulph Moor and Brown Edge

in Staffordshire.

Toon wrote over 25 books, together with numerous booklets, essays and articles. He also engaged in internet authorship and discussion, contributing to these topical online discussions until his death.[3]

Style and beliefs

Toon's work repeatedly stressed the importance of the "

Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons". His work was marked by clarity of presentation and strength of persuasion, attracting praise from supporters and critical attention from antagonists.^{[citation needed]} He often wrote and spoke about the controversies in the Anglican Communion concerning issues of liturgical reform, the ordination of women, and the reception of homosexuals in the Church, all of which he took a strong conservative line.^[4] With the widespread adoption of the new liturgies in the Church of England (Alternative Service Book 1980, and then Common Worship 2000) and similar liturgical resources in other provinces (notably the 1979 revised Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America), Toon became a notable spokesman and theological advocate for the strong minority lobby favouring traditionalist views, and the retention of the seventeenth-century liturgies of the (original) Book of Common Prayer.^[5]

Although Toon is remembered, particularly in later life, for his association with these controversies, and with the Continuing Anglican movement which arose, particularly in America, out of opposition to reforms, he was a gifted theologian and biblical commentator, whose work (particularly in earlier life) was of a general nature, not associated with controversy, and widely employed by students of biblical analysis.

Personal life

He was married to Vita for forty-seven years. Vita graduated from London and Oxford universities. They had one daughter, Deborah, who is married to a naval officer and lives in California. Deborah graduated from

University of Texas

at Austin.

Toon died on 25 April 2009, in San Diego, California. The cause of death was amyloidosis, a rare auto-immune disease, which he had been battling for some months. There was a private family funeral in California followed by a public memorial service organised by the Prayer Book Society of the USA at All Saints' Church, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania on 24 July 2009.