“Everything [we have] is from God and everything belongs to God. And when we give, we are giving back to God.”
The Rev. Keith Gilbert remembers the late Archbishop Douglas Hambidge—who died on March 2, four days before his 99th birthday—bringing that message with him wherever he went, especially as a speaker on church stewardship in his retirement years.
Now retired himself, Gilbert invited his longtime colleague and friend Hambidge to speak at his parish at the time, St. Catherine’s Anglican Church in Vancouver, in the late 2010s. But even as an old friend, he had to make the request early.
“He was very much in demand,” Gilbert says. “You had to book him months and months in advance because he was extremely active in stewardship well into his retired years … Stewardship to him was not just [for] money. It was time and talent and it was the resources of the earth in an environmental sense as well.”
Hambidge was bishop of the diocese of New Westminster and metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon. According to a biography posted by the diocese of New Westminster, he was born and raised in London, England, educated at London University and served in the British armed forces during the Second World War. Hambidge was ordained in London in 1953 and moved to Cassiar, B.C. in the diocese of Caledonia in 1956, where he served as rector of All Saints Church.
He would go on to serve as a priest at B.C. parishes in Smithers and Fort Saint John before becoming a canon at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Prince Rupert. In 1969, he was elected bishop of Caledonia and in 1980, he moved south to become bishop of New Westminster. Shortly after, he was also elected metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of B.C. and Yukon.
When he retired in 1993, Hambidge remained active as a member of the Anglican Church of Canada, travelling across the country to give talks on stewardship. He also spent two years training clergy at St. Mark’s Theological College in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
During his time in Prince Rupert, Gilbert tells the Journal, Hambidge became close with the people of the nearby Nisga’a First Nation. They ceremonially adopted him into one of their clans, the Raven Clan, by bestowing upon him a Nisga’a name and an ornate blanket signifying his membership in their family and clan structure. This relationship would remain deeply important to Hambidge throughout the rest of his life, Gilbert says, informing his ministry and personal life.
At Hambidge’s funeral on March 28 at Holy Nativity Anglican Church in Calgary, the blanket the Nisga’a people gave him adorned his casket along with a mitre bearing a similar beaded raven. Gilbert says members of the Raven Clan were there to ceremonially reclaim the blanket they would one day give to another member.
Retired bishop Michael Ingham, Hambidge’s successor as bishop of New Westminster, believes few in the diocese understood the depth of Hambidge’s connection to the Nisga’a Nation. He was often called upon to be present in the Nisga’a community up north, even while serving in New Westminster, Ingham says. As a result of his close ties to Indigenous people, Hambidge was an early champion of incorporating Indigenous spiritual traditions and modes of worship into Anglican practice.
Hambidge was also a champion of Indigenous rights and participation in the church, Ingham says—becoming involved in several land claim negotiations, inviting Indigenous drummers and dancers to the diocesan synod for the first time, and speaking often of his respect for Indigenous people’s wisdom and traditions.
A 2015 article in The Canadian Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies credits Hambidge as an early advocate for the Anglican Church of Canada to apologize for its involvement in residential schools, a call he made while sitting in at a 1993 meeting of the church’s Residential Schools Working Group. Hambidge asked the Indigenous members of the group to weigh whether they felt the church yet understood and acknowledged the schools’ harms sufficiently for an apology to be meaningful, the article says. They decided it did. Later that year, Archbishop Michael Peers delivered the church’s first apology for the residential schools.
Hambidge faced some opposition on these positions, Ingham says, from church groups in the diocese who disagreed with his positions on land claims or were uncomfortable with Indigenous dances at the diocesan synod.
“I think it comes with the territory,” Ingham says. “Leadership is always ineffective if it produces no opposition and Douglas certainly wasn’t guilty of that.” When Ingham became bishop himself, he says, Hambidge advised him that the bishop’s authority only goes so far, stopping when the people of the church begin to say no.
Hambidge took a careful approach to the issues on which he faced opposition, seldom forcing the issue to a breaking point, Ingham says, which he believes was ultimately the right call. Some of the parishes that opposed Hambidge later left the Anglican Church over issues related to same-sex marriage, he adds.
Ingham also recalls Hambidge’s talent for using Scripture to shed light on the meaning of current events. He would often sum up a synod’s proceedings by comparing them to a passage from Paul’s epistles, Ingham says. “He was marvellous in his ability to unpack meanings from these ancient texts in a different context and find a way to illumine what we had been all trying to do at synod for a couple of days.”
Hambidge did the same with a range of scripture on a radio program he appeared on for several years that was syndicated across northern British Columbia, Ingham says. “I think that was a terrific skill that he brought to our diocese.”
Archbishop John Stephens is the current bishop of the diocese of New Westminster and metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of B.C. and Yukon. He met Hambidge as a newly ordained priest in 1991 and knew him for several years as they both served in the diocese from 1995 onward. Stephens says Hambidge was highly supportive when Stephens became bishop, always showing interest both in the running of the diocese and in how Stephens was finding the role.
“He was a very kind and perceptive man, very good sense of humour; would love to share a laugh about many a thing,” Stephens says. “But he also had a deep knowledge of the church and a very deep love of Christ.”
Hambidge also showed real care for newly ordained clergy, he says, finding ways to support them whenever he visited parishes as a speaker.
“He was a very good mentor because he listened well and because he had a way of showing compassion and kindness in the way he responded,” Stephens says. “That’s the impression one was left with—one of those people [where] you really enjoy being in his company.”
Hambidge was predeceased by his wife Denise. He is survived by three adult children.
