FATHER Harry Williams was one of the group of theologians, commonly associated with Cambridge, whose discontent with traditional methods of Christian teaching and preaching found voice among the postwar generation in a call for a reform more radical than any mere “restatement” of accepted Christian standards in faith and morals.

Apart from that “rogue elephant” Bishop John Robinson, Williams was perhaps the most controversial and widely influential figure in the group.

Harry Abbott Williams was born in 1919, in Rochester. Entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1938 from Cranleigh School with a scholarship in history, he was able to remain in residence as a candidate for ordination for the full degree course, taking a first in theology in his third year.

He was ordained from Cuddesdon in 1943, and served his first curacies in wartime London at St Barnabas, Pimlico, and All Saints, Margaret Street. The Catholic atmosphere in which his parochial experience was gained gave an enduring colour to his religious thinking.

Before he left London on his appointment as chaplain-tutor at Westcott House, Cambridge, he had already won a reputation as a preacher; and 1951 he returned to his old college as lecturer in theology, later becoming dean of chapel and tutor. Soon after this came the nervous breakdown which involved him in prolonged courses of analysis and treatment, and led him to study Freudian and post-Freudian psychology, which more than anything else determined his critical attitude to traditional Christianity.

Between his Lent book Jesus and the Resurrection (1951), commissioned by the Bishop of London, and the collection of sermons, The True Wilderness (1965) there is all the distance between spiritual comfort and ruthless challenge — a passage measured by a series of addresses and interviews on radio and TV and culminating in the article and lecture contributed to the volumes Soundings, The God I Want and Objections to Christian Belief. The constant theme, on which he came to dwell with little variation, was a modern version of the ancient “Know thyself”, coupled with an unqualified repudiation of the (supposed) Christian obsession with sin, self-contempt and self-humiliation. God’s forgiveness means that God’s love embraces us not as we may become but as we are — and we have to learn to “accept ourselves because we have been accepted”.

The appeal of this new theology, as might be expected, was felt most by the unsatisfied fringe of thoughtful Christians; but the respect in which Williams came to be held by more orthodox churchmen was shown by the welcome extended to him as a member of more than one official or unofficial groups formed for the discussion of doctrinal or ecclesiastical questions — including a theological conference in Russia between Anglicans and Orthodox.

His impact upon the religious thought and practice of academic youth was every bit as much as his notoriety outside the university might have suggested. One reviewer hailed The True Wilderness as “a spiritual classic of the 20th century”. Most of the sermons were preached in Trinity College Chapel where they attracted packed undergraduate congregations. Williams admitted privately in later years that, despite his huge following, climbing into a pulpit always terrified him.

It is likely that his personal influence upon his tutorial pupils and upon the younger Fellows of the college, who would seldom hear him preach, was ultimately more significant.

In 1969 Williams decided to retire from academic life and join the Community of the Resurrection, the Anglican religious community in Mirfield, Yorkshire. A recruit with Williams’s outstanding intellectual gifts was a prized addition to the community, and he was treated as such without having to undergo the full rigours of monastic discipline. This was probably not good for him and was certainly not good for the community either.

Shortly after taking solemn vows he published a small masterpiece called The Joy of God followed quite soon by his autobiography, Some Day I’ll Find You. This showed much of the genius of his spirit and his abounding sense of humour, though many found the text a little snobbish and tired of the accounts of his friendships with the titled and the famous.

Thereafter his literary output ceased, and he embarked on 34 years of self-communion in the monastery — punctuated by frequent outings to Chatsworth and London where his great friend John Betjeman put his Chelsea house at Williams’s disposal.

It was soon after the publication of The True Wilderness (still in print today and selling vigorously) that Williams made it clear that his orientation was homosexual. This gave him a particular perception into human nature, and the pastoral care he gave to his pupils and former pupils was exceptional. At Trinity one of his pupils was involved in a near-fatal car accident and was unconscious for some time. Williams got to his knees and prayed his heart out. The young man recovered.

From Mirfield he was occasionally tempted out to preach, and his sermons remained outstanding. In 1976, for example, he preached at the wedding of a former pupil in a Catholic church and showed a more profound understanding of the nature of marriage and Christian marriage than most heterosexual priests.

Among his friends Williams numbered the Prince of Wales, who came to Trinity College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate in 1966. The Prince called his son Harry and long after Williams entered the monastery, he would call Mirfield to seek Williams’s advice and wise counsel. Williams took part in the marriage service of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.

Along with Michael Ramsey, Alan Ecclestone, W. H. Vanstone and Rowan Williams, Father Williams was one of the very few outstanding Anglican theologians of the postwar years.

Father Harry Williams, theologian, was born on May 10, 1919. He died on January 30, 2006, aged 86.