26 Facts About Mark Oakley

Mark David Oakley was born on 28 September 1968 and is a British Church of England priest.

Mark Oakley served as assistant curate of St John's Wood Church from 1993 to 1996.

Mark Oakley was then asked by Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, to serve as his chaplain, which he did from 1996 to 2000.

Mark Oakley was made a Deputy Priest in Ordinary to Elizabeth II in 1996.

Mark Oakley was appointed an examining chaplain and bishops' advisor.

Mark Oakley was instituted Dean of Southwark on 3 December 2023.

In 2021 Mark Oakley was given a Fellowship by King's College London in recognition of his 'exceptional service and achievement'.

Mark Oakley's supervisors were Professor Helen Wilcox, Professor Tony Brown, and Professor Andrew Hiscock.

Mark Oakley wrote a popular book called The Collage of God in 2001 which received a number of positive reviews.

Mark Oakley has edited a book of John Donne's poetry and compiled a wedding anthology.

Mark Oakley edited A Good Year with contributions by bishops on the liturgical year.

Mark Oakley has contributed several essays to various books and reviews in theological papers and journals.

Mark Oakley preached in 2017 at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales:.

Mark Oakley is known for his interest in the ways literature and poetry explore theological themes and for his preaching, which is often both entertaining and noticeably rooted in his Anglicanism.

Mark Oakley's initiative of having a series of sermons which explored plays that were currently showing in London, to which the actors and production team of each play came and took part in conversation, is an example of the way Oakley tries to open a dialogue between people of faith and the work of the artistic community.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote in 2004 that Mark Oakley's thinking and approach is in the tradition of Westcott.

In 2010, the former Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, wrote a poem dedicated to Mark Oakley entitled "In Winter" and said of him that: "It's extremely unusual to meet anyone who isn't a specialist who has such a subtle feeling for language as he does".

Mark Oakley has this gift in abundance: in this book we read in his company a succession of very diverse poems; we listen to his honest, careful, demanding reflections on them; and we recognise that this is a deeply authentic voice that can be relied on not to give us either cliches or indulgent ramblings.

In 2018 the Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, asked Mark Oakley to be a judge of the 2018 Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry.

In 2019 Mark Oakley published a collection of sermons, By Way of the Heart.

Rowan Williams commented in a review: "Mark Oakley is one of the most distinctive, intelligent and refreshing voices in the Church of England, always illuminating, never stale or second-hand".

Mark Oakley published in 2019 a collection of reflections on the poetry of George Herbert, My Sour-Sweet Days: George Herbert and the Journey of the Soul.

Mark Oakley was Chair of the Civil Liberties Trust and a Director of Liberty, and is currently Patron of Tell MAMA and an ambassador for Stop Hate UK.

Mark Oakley received one of the first National Hate Crime Awards in 2016.

Mark Oakley is a visiting lecturer in the Theology and Religious Studies Department at King's College London and was appointed a visiting scholar of Sarum College in 2017.

Mark Oakley was President of the Shropshire Horticultural Society, when it organised the Shrewsbury Flower Show for 2014.