It is with great sadness that we learnt over the weekend of the death of Paul Burbridge after a short illness. Paul was co-founder of Riding Lights Theatre Company in the 1970s which was strategically significant in opening the arts as a place for Christian creative thinking, mission and ministry.
He and his wife Bernadette have been good friends to St Johns working with us on a number of projects from the Centre for Christian Communication (led by Geoffrey Stevenson) to Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science. A close friend of Murray Watts, he was on the Board of the Wayfarer Trust which has led to a number of visiting fellows staying with us in College in recent years.
Over the past few years ECLAS had worked with him on a number of projects and he was a person of humility, creativity, humour and energy. He saw the value of holding science together with arts and humanities and was always eager to explore the big questions.
The Principal writes, ‘Paul was such a kind and engaging person whose influence on Christians of my generation was huge. He modelled a joy in faith and that the world of the arts was a gift from God. I am grateful for him and all that we received as a College from him’.
We extend our thoughts and prayers at this time to his wife, Bernadette, and three children, Patrick, Caitlin and Erin.
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