Canon Malcolm Brown writes:
CANON Chris Beales was perhaps the leading exponent of the partnership approach to Christian social action in the past 50 years. Always deeply committed to local ministry, his ability to connect social needs to potential solutions, and to gather resources for innovative projects, epitomised the Church’s latent convening power and commitment to social change. Chris got things done through a totally unforced charm and boundless enthusiasm, grounded in a profound affection for people and love of ordinary communities.
After training at Cranmer Hall, Durham, Chris was ordained deacon in 1976 to a curacy in Upper Armley, Leeds, with a part-time post in industrial chaplaincy. Dialogue with the world of work evoked a passionate vocational response, and, unsurprisingly, his next move was into full-time Industrial Mission (IM) on Teesside under Canon Bill Wright. It was a time of crisis for industry and communities in the north. Chris adopted IM’s inherited theology — being present to discover the surprising God already active in the world — but developed its application from simple factory-visiting into building alliances for change across the community. He never shied from speaking overtly of God and the Gospels, but always of a God revealed in transformative action.
In 1985, Chris moved to the Board for Social Responsibility as secretary of the Industrial and Economic Affairs Committee. At a time of ecumenical optimism, he worked to cement IM’s place in the emerging new structures, and he presided over numerous study groups producing reports to the General Synod on issues of the day.
Responding to the Faith in the City report on urban priority areas, he created the Linking Up project — among the first to mobilise different faith communities for collaborative economic regeneration. He was always convinced that relationships between Christians, and between people of diverse faiths, grew best in a context of mutual action rather than endless talk. The successes of Linking Up led directly to his translation to the Civil Service as the first head of the Inner Cities Religious Council, from where his initiatives could continue, now backed by government networks.
Chris returned to the north-east in 1994 as Director of the Churches’ Regional Commission, where his ability to draw disparate people together on projects was undiminished. But resources for specialist units such as the commission were shrinking, as was the Churches’ confidence in social engagement; so Chris returned to his roots in parish ministry, taking with him many of his wider initiatives. The range of his activities while he was a parish priest in south London and, later, Woburn Sands defies comprehensive listing. It included: linking carpet-makers in Afghanistan with markets in the UK as a vehicle for economic development, programmes to combat unemployment, helping to found the London Design and Engineering Technical College (one of the few such New Labour ventures to succeed), and various initiatives to address the housing crisis.
Chris was, thus, an obvious choice to join the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing when it was launched by the present Archbishop of Canterbury. His effervescent cheerfulness, mental acuity, and capacity for work, plus his genius for networking, made his contribution indispensable to the eventual report, Coming Home. Typically, he then applied his energies to turning the recommendations into action.
On 6 January, he attended a meeting at Church House to progress this work, volunteering to lead much of it himself. An hour later, he collapsed suddenly with a brain haemorrhage, yards from where his office had been in the 1980s. He died on 12 January, aged 72, leaving his widow, Angela, their children, Andrew, Chris, and Jacqueline, and innumerable grateful colleagues, so many of whom had been drawn into his ever-widening circle of friends.
