Biography and Career of Revd Samuel Wells

Samuel Martin Bailey Wells (born 1965) is an English priest of the Church of England and a noted institutional leader, preacher, theologian, author and broadcaster. Since 2012, he has been the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields in central London, and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College London.

Early life and education
Wells is one of two surviving children of Stephen Wells (1922-2005), who was Rector of Saltford (1956-87), with Corston and Newton St Loe (1976-87), in the Diocese of Bath and Wells, and Ruth Wells (née Moran, originally Morogowsky, 1930-84), a midwife. Ruth came to Britain as a refugee from Berlin in 1938. Her parents, Israel and Eugenia Morogowsky, were born Jews in Kyiv, Ukraine, and became Christians before fleeing to Berlin in the 1920s.

Wells was born in 1965 in Chatham, Ontario, and came to England as an infant. He studied at Bristol Grammar School, where he was head of school, and gained a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, to study Modern History, graduating in 1987. (Scholarships at Merton are called postmasterships.) In the same year he moved to Liverpool to work as a pastoral assistant in in the parish of St Luke-in-the-City under the leadership of Neville Black. In 1988, he entered Edinburgh Theological College to train for ordination. During his time at theological college, he also studied theology at New College, University of Edinburgh, and graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Divinity (BD) degree in Systematic Theology. He later undertook postgraduate study at Durham University under the supervision of Ann Loades and received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1996.

Ordained ministry
Ordained in 1991, Wells served his title at St Luke’s, Wallsend (Diocese of Newcastle), where he served under John Inge, later to become Bishop of Worcester. In 1995 he moved to Cambridge to the parish of St Andrew’s, Cherry Hinton, with All Saints, Teversham (Diocese of Ely). From 1997-2003 he served the parish of St Elizabeth, Earlham, in the Diocese of Norwich. In 1998 his neighbourhood was among 17 identified as Pathfinder communities for the New Labour New Deal for Communities programme. He initially chaired the community-led process, before becoming vice-chair until he left Norwich in 2003. He was closely involved in establishing the North Earlham, Larkman and Marlpit Development Trust, the first development trust in the East of England. He also created the ‘Body, Mind and Spirit’ charity, offering disadvantaged children opportunities to participate in creative play. He thus spent 10 of his first 12 years in ministry in areas of significant social disadvantage. He was Rural Dean of Norwich South 1999-2003. In 2003 Wells returned to Cambridge to serve the parish of St Mark’s, Newnham. He was also an
honorary fellow and chaplain at Wolfson College.

Dean of Duke Chapel
In 2005, Wells became the fifth Dean of Duke University Chapel, North Carolina, and also Research Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. In addition to preaching to the often 1000-strong congregation and overseeing the Chapel and Religious Life at Duke, he was well known for his profile on campus and in Durham. Within the university he conceived, convened and chaired the Faith Council, which consisted of 12 members from diverse faith traditions, including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu. He initiated the Deans’ Dialogues, in which he hosted conversations with deans of the various professional schools on campus. He taught in the Divinity School and in the Sanford School of Public Policy, where his well subscribed course ‘Ethics in an Unjust World’ explored different models of social engagement. He promoted relationships across Durham and between the university and the city, through organizations such as the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham. He established the Pathways House in Durham’s West End for students to live in intentional community in a disadvantaged neighbourhood, and organized and hosted many interactions between the university and parts of the city that were geographically close but socially an ocean apart.

Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Since 2012, Wells has been Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, central London. He was inducted by Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, on 2 July 2012. St Martin-in-the-Fields is a unique configuration of commercial, cultural, and charitable initiatives rooted in a vibrant congregational life. It has a long history of practical Christianity, artistic programmes, extensive engagement with those experiencing homelessness, and profit-making social enterprise. It employs in total over 250 people.

Wells’ principal role is to oversee congregational life and public ministry at St Martin’s. During his tenure the weekly Thursday lunchtime Great Sacred Music programme began in 2013 and has gained a considerable following. It led to the creation of St Martin’s Voices and a renaissance of St Martin’s in-house choral music. Meanwhile also in 2013, the Sunday International Group began its ground-breaking ministry with asylum seekers, which has continued, uninterrupted by the pandemic, led by Richard Carter. In 2020 Wells began the Being With course, devised with Sally Hitchiner, which has since grown to international influence and engagement. His role also involves considerable investment in other core St Martin’s initiatives. He is a director of St Martin-in-the-Fields Ltd, which operates an extensive culture and arts programme, two cafes, an events business and a shop. He is a trustee of The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, a major central London day centre for work with those experiencing homeless. He is also a trustee of the St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity, a UK-wide investor in helping individuals live a life away from the streets and in organisations that further such work. In this capacity he has broadcast the BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal with St Martin-in-the-Fields each year since 2012. He is a trustee of the St Martin-in-the-Fields Trust, and of several other charities.

St Martin’s flourishing combination of commerce, culture, compassion and congregational life led to the founding in 2017 by Jonathan Evens of HeartEdge, an international ecumenical movement of renewal of church and society. Wells has been closely involved in HeartEdge ever since and the movement has embraced many of his missional and theological ideas, set out most explicitly in his book A Future that’s Bigger than the Past. HeartEdge was particularly influential during the 2020-22 pandemic, and has gained a following in the UK, Netherlands, Australia, the US and South Africa.

Wells was an honorary canon of Chichester Cathedral 2004-15 and has been an honorary canon of Guildford Cathedral since 2017. He served on the Liturgical Commission of the Church of England 2016-21 and chaired Diverse Church from 2018 to 2024. From 2014, he has been a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4.

Theologian
Wells studied for his Ph.D. at Durham University under the supervision of Ann Loades. The title of his thesis was ‘How the Church Performs Jesus’ Story: Improvising on the Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas.’ Hauerwas remained a significant influence on Wells’ early publishing career: together the two edited The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics in 2003. A book of their conversations, In Conversation: Samuel Wells and Stanley Hauerwas was published in 2020. After the publication of his first book, Transforming Fate into Destiny, in 1998, Wells published perhaps the best-known of his earlier works, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics in 2004. Here he explored in detail the practice of overaccepting, a nonviolent process by which a community can renarrate challenging or hostile events and understand them within the
larger story of God. Wells’ 2006 book, God’s Companions, outlined a theology of abundance, with the refrain that God gives the church everything it needs to worship, be God’s friends and eat together. It expands on the insight of the Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, that the Eucharist provides the church with the practices needs to flourish.

From 2008, while at Duke University, Wells began to articulate his mature theology of being with – in contrast with other models of engagement, working with, working for and being for. This issued initially in his work Living Without Enemies (with Marcia A. Owen), which narrated how those organising against gun violence in a Southern city had discovered the theological principles on which Wells’ theology has become most associated. His definitive work on being with is his 2015 publication A Nazareth Manifesto: Being with God, in which he outlines the eight dimensions of being with: presence, attention, mystery, delight, participation, partnership, enjoyment and glory. This was followed by a twin sequel, Incarnational Ministry and Incarnational Mission. He has continued to pursue the dimensions and implications of being with in relation to pastoral care, mission, ethics, the cross, and social welfare.

In 2024 Cambridge University Press will publish his first extended theological engagement on the subject, Constructing an Incarnational Theology: A Christocentric View of God’s Purpose. Walter Brueggemann has said of this work, ‘ In this stunning book, Sam Wells mobilizes his immense powers of erudition and generativity to a breath-taking end. … In his generativity he breaks new ground, and invites his readers to a decisive shift from our usual presuppositions. … Wells has set down a marker for a fresh wave of reflection and interpretation. He shows himself to belong to the top rank of church thinkers who matter in the very long run to our life of faith.’

Preacher, Lecturer and Broadcaster
Wells has continued to publish across diverse fields, while perhaps being most closely identified with preaching. He is associated with a particular approach to preaching, which he explains in his books Speaking the Truth, Be Not Afraid, Learning to Dream Again and How to Preach – one that employs a significant degree of classical rhetoric while eschewing the raised voice and declamatory style of many preachers. The combination of his preaching reputation with his academic profile has brought him invitations to speak across the United Kingdom and United States and in diverse other places, including Nanjing, Hong Kong, Tehran, Melbourne, Berlin, Toronto, Amsterdam, Johannesburg and Buenos Aires.

Endorsing Wells’ 2015 volume How Then Shall We Live?, Walter Brueggemann wrote, “Sam Wells arguably has the liveliest, most agile, best informed, critically disciplined mind in the entire Christian community. And he has a baptized heart of honesty, compassion, and passion to match his baptized mind.” And endorsing Wells’ 2023 volume How to Preach, Anna Carter Florence wrote, “Wells is the preacher’s vicar. Everything he offers here is from the heart, as encouraging as it is empowering. This book will change your preaching life.”

Wells’ extensive range of publications, encompassing 46 books, has brought him to international attention. He served a term on the Multistakeholder Council, an initiative of the G20 intergovernmental process, from 2018-20, in recognition of his cross-disciplinary influence. He is also an experienced broadcaster. From 2014, he has been a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4, with now over 100 appearances, among many other broadcasting engagements.

Personal life
Wells is married to Rt Revd Jo Bailey Wells, Deputy Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion. They have two grown-up children; a son and a daughter.