John Kingsley Martin, a soft-spoken Australian who worked in multiple roles as a global Anglican communicator, has died at 75.
Martin was born in Australia in 1950 and began his vocation in church journalism with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, as reported by Andrew Carey of The Church of England Newspaper. By 1977, he became information officer for the Diocese of Sydney.
“Sydney had a reputation as a conservative evangelical centre of worldwide Anglicanism, which has lasted up to today,” Carey wrote. “But it was also a centre for excellence in terms of communications, ahead of the game in getting its message out in Australia and indeed around the world.”
He next became the Anglican Communion Office’s first communicator. “He helped move the communications from Gestetner [mimeograph] productions to email,” Carey wrote. “[H]e became acquainted firsthand with many of the churches of the Anglican Communion through staffing meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates Meeting and the inaugural meeting of CAPA (Council of the Anglican Provinces of Africa). He attended the 1983 [World Council of Churches] Assembly in Vancouver.”
He edited The Church of England Newspaper from 1988 to 1995. Carey reported that Martin “brought his love of sports” to his work with CEN. “As an Aussie his passion was cricket—having been a leg break bowler in his schooldays—and was understandably frustrated by the fact that the Church Times had cornered the market with a diocesan cricket league. During his editorship CEN sponsored a football league and for a short time a national C of E cricket team. Andrew Wingfield-Digby of Christians in Sport wrote a regular column for CEN for some time.”
In the later years of his communications work, Martin helped the Christian Medical Fellowship, Embrace the Middle East, Premier Christian Radio, and Fulcrum, which helped lead to his becoming global news editor for The Living Church from 2011 to 2019. Martin had a kindly and patient touch, whatever his subject matter.
He is survived by Deirdre, his wife of 34 years. Five years ago they moved to an assisted living facility in Salisbury when vascular Parkinsonism began affecting his lower body.
She told Carey: “Since then we have been regular attenders at the cathedral, and he said not long ago that it seemed his real spiritual life had begun and ended in a cathedral.”
Douglas LeBlanc is an Associate Editor and writes about Christianity and culture. He and his wife, Monica, attend St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Henrico, Virginia.
