| The Revd Paul Nicolson writes:
JENNIFER SWIFT, who died of breast cancer on 30 September, aged 54, was a persistent journalist always looking for ways of writing about poverty, which would illustrate its harsh reality for her readers in the UK.
She wrote with understanding of and insight into the economic injustice suffered by vulnerable and impoverished debtors. She attended one of Zacchaeus 2000’s McKenzie Friend courses, giving up a Saturday with her husband, Dr Tim Bartel.
She was born in New York City in 1955, and passed her primary and secondary-school years in Lansing, Michigan. She was awarded a BA in English (Hons) and Latin from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in 1978, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington (Seattle) in 1981. She emigrated from the United States to Oxford in 1985, with her husband, when he enrolled in the D.Phil. programme in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford.
A lifelong Anglican, she always exhibited the greatest respect for other Christians and faiths. She had planned, since 2000, to write a science-fiction novel whose central character would be a virtuous woman Muslim economist who represents Islam at its best, and in which the global economic system collapses because of unregulated financial practices. Her Muslim friends arranged for an imam to read and chant the Qur’an by her bedside after she was diagnosed as terminally ill.
She placed short stories and novelettes in science-fiction magazines. Among them is a study of the folly of cloning a human being to produce a genius scientist, published in 1984. One of her last publications was an essay on the delusion of escaping our own finitude, “What Art Can Teach Us about Biotechnology” (2008), for the website of BioCentre.
In the all-too-brief period be-tween the publication of her first article in March 2003 and that of her last in July 2009, her work appeared in The Tablet, the Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the New Scientist, the Church Times, and The Church of England Newspaper.
She accumulated a wealth of knowledge about how to eat and live healthily. Much of this knowledge was due to her perception of the baleful influence of large pharmaceutical companies on medical care. A key part of her dietary programme was eating the fruits and vegetables she grew, with Tim, on an allotment. The day she died, he was told it had been awarded one of the highest distinctions in the city of Oxford.
She is survived by her husband, a sister, two brothers, two nieces and two nephews.
Gillian Bradshaw adds: It was 1977; I was at the University of Michigan, doing a double major in Honors English and Classics, and feeling rather smug about it. I noticed the tall girl with the mane of bristling black hair in both departments, however, and discovered that I wasn’t the only one. Jennifer and I soon discovered other things in common: both church-going Episcopalians, both admirers of C. S. Lewis, both with a taste for science fiction. So a friendship began that lasted more than 30 years.
It was an off-and-on friendship. We would see one another a couple of times a year. It was only gradually that I realised how much I looked forward to the meetings, and how deeply I had come to respect her intelligence and integrity. Jennifer was always clear-sighted and perceptive, picking up on sides of questions that I missed.
She was always working on a novel that failed to find a publisher. I was never permitted to read any of them, but those of her short stories which were published were very good: elegantly written, beautifully researched, nuanced, and scrupulously fair. Perhaps the novels were considered too careful and balanced. She never grew bitter, but kept working, learning, and living a life full of grace.
Dr Youcef Nedjadi adds: The first time I met Jennifer and her husband, Tim, was in October 1995. We shared a house in Oxford. Jennifer has carved her name in me, not through her intellectual sophistication or writings, but primarily through her character, starting with her everyday little acts of kindness. This did not fluctuate with mood, season, or circumstance: it was constant, flowing effortlessly from her spiritual disposition. I knew that I had encoun-tered a genuine Christian woman by the way she controlled her tongue: I never heard her lie, backbite, tale- bear, raise her voice, curse, or use three words when one would do. She was tactful in laying out opposing arguments and never used words to hurt or degrade.
As weeks went by, I discovered how God was central to her life, as in the beautiful way she related to her husband, Tim, in her regular church attendance, in her charity work, in blending cycling tours with spiritual visits, or in the simple daily practice of saying a prayer before eating. Realising I was in a house in which the Lord was praised daily, albeit in a way different from mine, gave me spiritual comfort.
Jennifer also had a wealth of knowledge and an incisive mind, and knowing her has been an intellectually enriching experience. Despite the theological differences, the weight of the past, and cultural stereotyping, our exchange about Christianity and Islam was never a source of tension, because of her respect for Islam and our day-to-day living of shared values.
Jennifer believed in justice, peace and development for all, not in a multi-tiered world, and she spent time and energy campaigning in an NGO for that, bringing home to me, by words and deeds, the message that, despite religious differences, we shared the same humanity.
Jennifer had a strong interest in Christian saints and mystics. She introduced me to the life of Teresa of Avila and the writings of C.S. Lewis. I also introduced her to the life of Rabia al-Adawiya and to some writings of Jalal ad-Din Rumi. Reading their lives dissolves theological disputes to reveal the same quest for God’s love.
May God, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful, bless her soul, have mercy on her and grant her Paradise.
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