Husband, 81, and wife, 66, receive doctorates together at Winchester graduation ceremony

A husband-and-wife team shared a seven-year journey to the stage of a recent graduation ceremony at the University of Winchester. 

The Rev James Binney and his wife, Rev Julia Binney, both received doctorates in Theology and Practice at the ceremony held in Winchester Cathedral. 

The couple lead Abbey Baptist Church in the multicultural town of Reading, where Julia, 66, is the Minister and Jim, 81, who is officially retired, still preaches regularly. 

Their theses* were both directly linked to the work of the church and the Binneys say their research has helped them find new ways to grow their congregation and, in turn, their ministry experience has fed back into their academic studies. 

In 2018, one year into their doctoral studies, the Binneys moved from their previous ministry in Surrey, to Abbey Baptist Church in Reading to be met by very small congregation of around 20, mostly elderly and white. 

Six years on, their church regularly welcomes around 150 to Sunday services and these numbers are testament to the couple’s ambition to transform Abbey into an ‘international’ ‘intercultural’ church and prayer centre. 

The pair brought about change by reaching out to migrant communities and, ironically, they were helped by Covid. 

In lockdown, the Binneys did not take services online as many others did. Instead, they printed out weekly service sheets, in different languages, for people to follow at home. Many of these were hand delivered to older people without email. 

As a result, many more people felt included in the church.

Printed services have survived and thrived beyond Covid and many of the new worshippers at the Abbey Baptist Church come equipped with a service sheet in their own language. 

That congregation now has strong Iranian and Hong Kong contingents as well as people from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ukraine, Kurdistan, Hungary and Gaza as well as the UK. 

Jim said that their arrival in Reading helped refocus the couple’s aims for their theses. 

He opted to look at the theories of theologian Michael Moynagh, a moving force in the Fresh Expressions movement in relation to culture-specific churches needing to be ‘focussed and connected’. 

Julia’s research asked: ‘Does it matter where you pray?’ and explored one phrase of the Abbey’s missional strapline, ‘a place of prayer,’ reflecting on the location of the church within the footprint of medieval Reading Abbey. 

“It’s been rewarding to reflect on the same subject from two different angles,” said Jim. 

“Our doctoral studies reflect our passion for the contextual church and have been just as much a practical project as an academic one,” said Julia. 

Jim is a late developer. He left school with just one O-Level but has steadily added to his qualifications over the years. Since training to become a Baptist minister in the 1960s he has gone onto gain a BA, an MTh in Applied Theology, and an MPhil in Divinity. 

Julia has a BA in Economics as well as an MTh in Applied Theology. 

The couple say there was no rivalry during their studies and that they helped each other out when either was in difficulty. 

Julia said she had not been looking forward to the graduation ceremony but was won over on the day. “It was an amazing experience. It was so well organised, and the Cathedral was such a beautiful venue. 

“There was finally a sense of achievement – ‘I have actually done this!’” 

And there was an extra surprise awaiting the couple at the cathedral. Sitting next to them, also there to collect his Doctorate in Theology, was the Rev Richard Truss the Minister who had married Jim and Julia in 1991. 

Dr Timothy Secret is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Religion at the University of Winchester, said: “It is always a special moment for us as lecturers when our students’ journeys culminate in a graduation ceremony held in the majesty of Winchester Cathedral, but there was something truly magical about witnessing a husband and wife ascend together onto the plinth to sit among the lecturers as new doctors of theology.  

“It’s heartwarming to see how the research projects they have engaged in at the University of Winchester have already had such tangible effects in cultivating their thriving congregation in Reading, working to integrate such a wide range of immigrants from all around the world into a truly multicultural community.”