John Thomson

John Bromilow Thomson (born 1 July 1959) is a Church of England bishop. Since 2014, he has been the Bishop of Selby, a suffragan bishop of the Diocese of York. He began his ordained ministry as a curate and youth chaplain in the Diocese of Sheffield, before moving to South Africa and the Anglican Church of Southern Africa as a tutor at a theological college. He returned to Sheffield where he was a vicar from 1993 to 2001 and the director of ministry for the Diocese of Sheffield from 2001 to 2014. Early life and education Thomson was born on 1 July 1959 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also spent twelve years living in Uganda. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, then an all-boys independent school in Edinburgh, and at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent school in Elstree, Hertfordshire, England. He studied history at the University of York, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1981. Thomson then trained for ordination at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, an evangelical Anglican theological college. He also studied theology and graduated from the University of Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1984: as per tradition, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Oxon) degree in 1991. He later continued his studies part-time, and graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in theology in 2001. His doctoral thesis was titled "The ecclesiology of Stanley Hauerwas as a distinctively Christian theology of liberation (1970-2000)".