Rev Dr Joel Edwards: A faithful Ambassador of Christ
Dr David Muir pays tribute to his former pastor and work colleague, the late Revd Joel Edwards, one of the foremost leaders to come from Britain’s Black Pentecostal Church movement
Every now and then in history, someone comes along and changes everything. They leave an indelible mark on us. They change what we feel about the world, our faith and ourselves. They change us and give us hope. We accept them as a blessing, even as a gift from God. Joel Edwards was such a person.
Thomas Carlyle, one of the great 19th century conservative thinkers, would designate them as ‘great men’. Indeed, his philosophy of history can be summarised as the history of the deeds of ‘Great Men’ – these ‘great ones’, sent among us as a ‘natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven…in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them’.
Joel Edwards would not have seen himself in that category; his natural modesty would prevent him from accepting such panegyrical praise. But, to some of us, his character, leadership style and Christian life and example encapsulate many of the qualities described above. For those who knew him, Joel Edwards was proud to be a faithful ‘ambassador of Christ’. Like all the best leaders, he was a ‘dealer in hope’.
Early years and spiritual formation
Revd Dr Joel Patrick Edwards CBE was born in October 1951 in Jamaica, and came to the UK in 1960 – two years before Jamaica got its independence.
Arriving in the UK was a real culture shock for Joel. He relates the experience in his book Lord, Make Us One – But Not All the Same! Seeking Unity in Diversity (Hodder & Stoughton, 1999). In this autobiographical reflection, he wrote: ‘I was shocked and deeply disappointed. In Jamaica, we had our own house in its own yard. Here, it seemed, I was being brought to live in a factory.’
According to an 8-year-old Joel, it had to be a factory because he had seen ‘Dickensian drawings in my books at school, and I knew that all homes in England were quaint snow-capped cottages’. The other culture shock for him was going to school, where the kids were given free school milk and ate fish and chips in newspapers!
School and Black Church
Joel went to school in 1960s Britain – a period when many children had the label ‘educationally sub-normal’ (ESN) attached to them, a label that denied them opportunities to flourish and blighted their adult lives. Indeed, this scandalous treatment of Black kids in the 1960s British education system was brought to the public’s attention by Bernard Coard in his book, How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British School System: The Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain. These ESN schools, previously called ‘schools for the mentally subnormal’, had disproportionate numbers of Caribbean children enrolled in them.
While Joel would have undoubtedly suffered some of the racism and prejudice experienced by many Caribbean children, he survived and even thrived at school – against the odds. At his Carlton Primary School in Kentish Town, Joel stated that there were ‘only a handful of Black children’, and that he became ‘an object of curiosity and intrigue’.
There is in Joel’s experience a poignant (dare I say painful) memory of what schooling was like for many Black kids in this period: ‘Everyone in school reminded me of my difference. For reasons I could not fully understand, school lessons suddenly became more difficult: it felt almost as though the rules about learning had changed.’
Secondary school was a little better for Joel. Although he failed his eleven plus exams, he did relatively well at Sir William Collins Secondary School in Camden. He was elected house captain in the fifth year, and two years later became the school’s first Black school captain (Head Boy). This was quite an achievement.
Joel says there was something ‘vaguely incongruous about a head boy on free school meals, who occasionally represented the school at the Rotary Club and met distinguished visitors on the headmaster’s behalf.’ He left secondary school with three A-Levels.
Whilst school presented challenges for the young Joel, he was also struggling with the identity question as a young Jamaican in Britain: ‘inhabiting two worlds’ and the ‘unconscious development of a cultural dualism’. It was his Pentecostal church community and his faith in God that gave him his ‘greatest stability and clearest point of reference’. It was this faith and stability that would later catapult him to Christian leadership and international prominence.
When he gave his life to Christ at 11, it began as a schoolboys’ prank. In Joel’s words, the challenge with his friend Bunny was: ‘Last one to the altar is a monkey.’ And as Joel didn’t want to be a monkey, he dashed to the altar only to see Bunny stuck in his seat and laughing at him.
A prank between two boys became a defining moment and conversion experience for Joel. Of course, Joel’s mum was pleased to see him at the front, at the altar, to receive Christ. Joel describes the moment that would change his life thus: ‘It is not easy to describe what happened next, except to say that I was overwhelmed by the most unworldly recognition of guilt and forgiveness, and wept uncontrollably for what seemed like a lifetime… I was, in CS Lewis’s words, “surprised by joy”.’ The experience made him feel ‘clean inside’, marking the beginning of his conscious decision to follow Christ.
Those teenage days in the New Testament Church of God (NTCG) were significant for Joel and how he would lead and minister in the Church and the wider world. As a ‘classical Pentecostalist’, he unashamedly talks about his experience of receiving the Holy Spirit at 19, with the phenomenon of ‘speaking in tongues’, as recorded in the book of Acts, chapter 2:1–4.
Although Joel operated effectively in ecumenical circles, he remained quintessentially Pentecostal at heart. He believed in Spirit baptism, a non-cessationist view of charismatic gifts, the centrality of preaching and the power of worship. Joel took the Bible seriously, but not literally. He believed passionately that it offered hope for all and he wanted to proclaim it.
From Bible school to history maker
After leaving school, Joel trained at the London Bible College (now the London School of Theology) from 1972–1975. Having spent 10 years in the Probation Service, his formal ministry started at Mile End NTCG. In 1988, he became the General Secretary of the West Indian Evangelical Alliance (later renamed the African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance). In this role, he devoted enormous time and energy, encouraging Black and white Christians to work together for the common good. He also provided a platform for Black ministers to discuss some of the problems and challenges facing them as leaders of diaspora congregations.
From 1992–1997, he was UK Director of the Evangelical Alliance (EA), providing leadership to the team in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In 1997, Joel Edwards made history. He became the first Black Pentecostal person to be appointed General Director of the EA, an organisation founded in 1846.
Leading the EA for 11 years, Joel sought to transform society and rehabilitate evangelicalism in his unique way with several national initiatives. Whether it was the Respectcampaign, the Agenda for Change tours, or his work with Dr Marijke Hoek on the Forum for Change, Joel wanted the voice of evangelicals (actually, all Christians) to be a credible one in the public square. At the centre of his ministry were three big ideas: making Christ credible in the public square; mediating the Gospel as ‘good news’; and uniting evangelicals to transform society. As a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, Joel’s voice, insight and wisdom were heard nationally and internationally.
Joel had a passion for justice, which he embodied as International Director for Micah Challenge. He was evangelical about campaigning for the global poor and for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2019, he was recognised in the Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year’s Honours List with a CBE for ‘services to tackling poverty and injustice’.
He received many accolades: he became an honorary Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral in 2001; the Prime Minister’s Medal of Appreciation for Services to Jamaica; an honorary doctorate from the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in 2006; and was later appointed a Distinguished Fellow of the Graduate School; and the Langton Award for Community Service by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2016 for ‘uniting evangelical Christians across the UK in challenging global injustice’. Joel, the consummate diplomat and bridgebuilder, was also a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Tony Blair Foundation.
I was privileged to work closely with Joel. Theologically, he was astute but accessible, as seen in his books The Cradle, The Cross and the Empty Tomb (2000) and An Agenda for Change: A Global Call for Spiritual and Social Transformation (2008). Historically, he had a keen sense of the culture and emergence of the Black Church in Britain and its impact and contribution to society. Joel didn’t see himself as a ‘great man’ in Carlyle’s sense, but he certainly was an exemplary Christian leader and a faithful ambassador of Christ the King.
DR R DAVID MUIR
Academic dean at Christ the Redeemer College; postgraduate supervisor for students at Westcott House, Cambridge University; former director of Public Theology & Public Policy at the EA.
To mark the quinquennial of his passing, and what would have been his 75th birthday, friends and colleagues at Christ the Redeemer College (CRC) and the Joel Edwards Legacy Group (JELG) are hosting the Annual Joel Edwards Inaugural Lecture at CRC in October. For more details, go to the website: https://joeledwardslegacy.org/
You can also write to us: infojelg@christredeemer.ac.uk
