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The Best...TV vicar

Peter Owen Jones
  • Posted at 5:24pm
  • 18 January 2008
  • by RuthMargolis-RT
  • 2 comments

How many Church of England vicars do you know who've confessed to thinking about breasts while meditating with a Shaolin kung fu monk? I know of only one such holy man. Peter Owen Jones: philosopher, warrior, priest. Anyone hoping for an ode to a certain purveyor of ecclesiastic comedy twaddle (that means you, Vicar of Dibley), kindly go and eat your dog collar.

I stumbled across the Reverend back in 2006 when he presented The Lost Gospels on BBC4 - a rousing exploration of the missing New Testament texts. I liked his fedora, his weather-and-strife-lashed under-eye area and those dusty, matted locks. But most of all I drank up his non-preachiness; the earnest, searching musings he poured forth as he trekked, shirt billowing, through a blistering desert backdrop. This wasn't an attempt to make me or anyone else believe in God. He was merely painting in Christianity's rich history.

I think Owen Jones was leaning coquettishly against an Ionic column in the Vatican when he explained how a woman - Mary Magdalene - might actually have been the first pope. This is a man with a sturdy, mature spirituality but one who's not scared to scrutinise and strip back his own religion. OK, he's not the first theologian to offer a sideways glance at Christianity. But he is, to my knowledge, the first to do so while looking disarmingly like Indiana Jones.

Now the craggy Rev - a former advertising executive - is back (woefully, without the hat) in Extreme Pilgrim on BBC2. The three-part series sees him search for spiritual enlightenment by shadowing holy men from around the world. Owen Jones thinks Westerners have lost touch with the essence of spirituality. He's also worried for his own underfed soul, so bounds, tail wagging, into a series of exploratory, spiritual clinches with enlightened folk in China, India and Egypt.

In India a sadhu suggests that Owen Jones meditate while standing on his head. Rather than clenching his buttocks and politely declining like a normal person, he does as he's told. Genitals nestled in a fragile muslin pouch, he gamely puts head to woven mat and summons enlightenment. Atta boy.

But swelling a spirit shrivelled by overexposure to a busy life and Western vices (he smoke roll-ups and drinks) ain't easy. And so come the tears, the self-doubt, the physical pain and a dose of dysentery. For what it's worth, I try to mentally coax him through uncomfortable situations, pausing only to soak up his charisma and his intoxicating willingness to question his mentors and seek enlightenment from every source. It's tiring but totally worth it.

Back home, Owen Jones is a humble clergyman in a small Sussex parish. I bet when he rocked up in the 90s, the congregation swelled and the ladies swooned. Perhaps one over-zealous parishioner even painted "Love you" on her eyelids à la Raiders of the Lost Ark. Tell you what - I would.

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  • Posted on 27 March 2008
  • at 3:02pm
  • by Annetravels

I watched a small sample of the Reverend's spiritual expeditions and am delighted to say that I was both intrigued and impressed.

Having spent almost 2 years backpacking around the globe alone, I ditched the ties of my Roman Catholic faith and replaced it with a more universal spiritual view, as opposed to the committment to one faith. I think that Peter's experiences have highlighted the fact that, deep down we are seeking that elusive feeling of happiness and inner peace.

It made refreshing viewing to witness Peter's adventure and his views of the broader more spiritually holistic parts of our world... I am interested in reading any material he is likely to produce in the future. Keep up the good work Peter it makes fascinating viewing.

  • Posted on 07 February 2008
  • at 2:11pm
  • by SpursFan

Just so. It's great to encounter someone who can talk about spirituality / religion without sounding smarmy or fey.

The only thing I find distracting is that he looks and sounds exactly like the sculptor Peter Randall-Page. Maybe they went to the same school or something?

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