The Rt Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth obituary

Progressive bishop of Oxford and popular contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day

Richard Harries, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who has died aged 89, was best known to millions of listeners to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as one of the most esteemed contributors to its religious Thought for the Day slot over 54 years. His brief three-minute talks to early-morning listeners – the last of them broadcast at the end of March, a few days before he fell ill on Easter Sunday – were invariably cogent, compulsive and challenging, gently spoken and often laced with literary allusions.

In that, he certainly reached a wider audience than even his many books of theology and culture, despite his career as a cleric, university dean and bishop of Oxford for 19 years – though he was admired within and beyond the Church of England for that too.