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Obituary: The Revd Alastair Robin McGlashan

by
26 October 2012

The Revd Dr Bob Burn writes:

THE Revd Alastair Robin McGlashan, who died on 29 June, aged 79, was born in Plymouth to a naval family. After Shrewsbury School, he read Greats at Christ Church, Oxford, with some distinction.

His maternal grandmother and John Inchley's summer camps in the Quantocks were his chief Christian influences as a boy. In his third year at Oxford, he joined the Christian Union, and, after National Service, forgoing the rank of officer, trained for the ministry at St John's College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge, gaining a first in theology.

During his final year, he spent some time at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, where he met the Principal of the Tamilnad Theological College in South India, and formed a link. After curacies in St Helens and Ormskirk, and a year's training with CMS, he was appointed to the Tamil-medium theological college at Tirumaraiyur, near Tirunelveli.

At first he studied the formal language of Tamil, and then spent some time living in a village, learning everyday Tamil. He taught New Testament in the college, wrote four Tamil books on the New Testament, and a Greek grammar, and helped to revise the Tamil New Testament published in 1975.

By 1969, however, Robin had come to see that the theological education being offered did not take proper account of the Hindu context in which the Christian church in Tamil Nadu is set; nor did he know how it might; so he spent two years living close to the Saivite temple in Tirunelveli town. He became familiar with temple rituals and with classical texts sung at festivals. During the first of those years, he studied in Tamil for the degree of Vidwan for those who become qualified teachers of Tamil. In 1972, he rejoined the college, which had moved to Madurai, and had merged with Lutherans.

After a broken engagement in 1970, Robin sought help from the counselling centre of the Christian Medical College at Vellore. This led to an interest in psychology, and, in 1974, he decided to leave India and spend a year in clinical pastoral education in Chicago.

In 1975, he resigned from CMS, and, in 1977, he married Margaret Parr, a doctor working in Guy's Hospital, and became chaplain of West Park Psychiatric Hospital in Epsom. In 1984, he became a professional member of the Society of Analytical Psychology, and for 13 years worked in private practice as a Jungian analyst. During this time, he was also Clinical Director of the Morden Pastoral Counselling Centre.

His fellow chaplains greatly valued his insights, and his assurance that their vocation was to enable others "truly to be heard". His publications in religious and psychological journals reflect an awareness of personal growth in religion, from literal to symbolic perceptions - a growth that he had experienced as a committed Protestant Christian.

After retirement, Robin made a series of visits to both St Petersburg and Krakow, to assist with the development of courses in analytical psychology and psychotherapy. But he also made four long visits back to his Theological Seminary in South India, to teach pastoral counselling and re-establish contacts with Hindus.

After the diagnosis of cancer in 2002, he concentrated on translating the Periya Puranam, the Tamil Saivite classic from the medieval period, stories from which had moved him in the 1960s because of the great love of Siva of which they spoke. The Tamil Saivites in London, in danger of losing their cultural heritage, supported him. The publication of The History of the Holy Servants of the Lord Siva (Trafford, 2006) won accolades from Saivite congresses.

In his Christian immersion in Tamil literature and religion, Robin belongs to a tradition that includes Beschi (1700s) with G. U. Pope and Bishop Caldwell (1800s); but, in the depth of his understanding of the bhakti (devotional) tradition in Saivism, he stands alongside the Jesuit Robert de Nobili, who was in Madurai (late 1500s), and founded a church more deeply sensitive to the Hindu context than any since.

Robin is survived by his wife, Margaret, and daughter, Vivienne. The funeral took place in Motspur Park, the parish church where he had served, unpaid, for more than 20 years. The occasion was one of affection and admiration. Many Hindus helped to fill the church.

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